


Ballerino

by Deepdarkwaters



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Ballet, Bromance, Crime Fighting, Fluff, M/M, Phone Sex, Silly Spy Gadgets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:44:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 53,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>ballerino, Italian</b><br/><i>1. (n) male dancer</i><br/>2. (adj) unstable, fickle, fluctuating</p><p>AU: How different would Eggsy's life have turned out if Kingsman gave decent financial support to Lee's family after his death? With no Dean around to squash his interests, gymnastics leads to ballet school and a career as classical ballet's least likely ingenu.</p><p>There's also some kind of drama about famous folk disappearing and free internet and something about mass genocide.</p><p>There's also the matter of Harry Hart's gigantic, embarrassing, all-consuming crush. Bit awkward, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

**ballerino, Italian**  
1\. (n) male dancer  
2\. (adj) unstable, fickle, fluctuating

* * *

* * *

It's between darting one fellow in the neck and swinging a roundhouse kick at another's face that Harry realises his mission might be finished earlier than expected.

"Two more through this door," Merlin says in his ear, as Harry's twisting back to piston his elbow into the second guy's head, knocking him out cold. "Would you like me to print you the schedule in a larger font next time?"

"Look, I had an opportunity and I took it." They're all bland faceless goons in boiler suits, like lazily-animated video game characters; it makes the fight _boring_ , how they all attack in the same predictable way. It feels like a warm-up in the gym, going through combat exercises by rote before getting to the interesting stuff: duck, sidestep, the butt of his pistol crashing onto the guy's shooting hand, a foot slammed hard into the back of his knee, a dart in his friend's neck, catch his gun, a dart shot down at where the other one is scrambling to get to his feet. Harry yawns against the back of his hand and sweeps both the guns into a far corner of the corridor with a nudge of his foot. "Perhaps I'm turning over a new leaf? Early instead of late. Isn't that what you've been nagging for this last decade or so?"

"What's that saying about old dogs and new tricks? Three more just around that corner, and you're running out of darts so make them count."

"Mm," Harry murmurs, non-committal, and allows himself a little grin at Merlin's answering sigh of _well, go ahead, but don't come crying to me when you break a nail_ before he flings himself around the corner and into a hand-to-hand scuffle to save his darts. There's the heavy _thunk_ of bullets compacting in the fabric of his jacket, studding a constellation of certain bruises across his back and arm as he flies through the air and lands fist-first in someone's face, an _oof_ of pain as his knee drives deep into a solar plexus, and a sickening _crack_ when he hooks his Rainmaker handle behind one head and his palm behind another and smashes them together.

"You're hardly even trying," Merlin says, grudgingly impressed like always. "Villains these days just can't get the staff."

"Well, I expect this _old dog_ has been doing this longer than they've been alive. For god's sake, get up, I barely touched you," he snaps at the man rolling on the floor wheezing and pawing at his kneed stomach. "My quarrel's not with you. If you'd be so kind as to direct me to Mr Fauntleroy, we'll all be home in time for Bake Off."

"Get fucked, grandad," the little thug snarls, raspy with pain and scrabbling about on the floor trying to snag his dropped gun.

"Rude," Harry informs him coldly, and shoots a knockout dart right between his eyebrows to teach him a lesson. "Merlin?"

"Hang on, he's on the move. He was in his office, looks like he's heading for the lift. There's a helipad on the roof."

Harry's already racing for the stairs. "This way clear?"

"Clear, but you'll have to hurry."

Easy to say that for someone sitting in his office with his feet up on the desk and a mug of tea. Harry takes the stairs two at a time, gritting his teeth through the growing burn in his thighs, and doesn't reply because he doesn't want to show off how out of breath he is – not that it matters when Merlin's got his heart monitor right there on the screen, but it's the principle of the thing. The lift pings somewhere above just as he's flying up the last flight of stairs and he opens his mouth to ask _how many_ but Merlin's already answering.

"Target plus four bodyguards, pilot already in the chopper. I need those blueprints, so put that lighter away."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Harry mutters, putting his lighter away. He hurls open the last door and leaps out onto the concrete roof, umbrella opening in front of him as drops to one knee. The handle shudders in his grip under the onslaught of bullets but he holds tight, safe behind his cover as he picks off three of the bodyguards on the stun setting. Fauntleroy's there, ugly and yelling, briefcase attached to his wrist with gleaming silver handcuffs. _That's regrettable_ , Harry thinks vaguely, Merlin making a similar displeased sound in his ear. The last bodyguard is frantically trying to reload his gun when Harry refurls his Rainmaker and races over, using Fauntleroy's arm, outstretched in panicky defence, as leverage to vault up and boot the bodyguard in the side of the head. He crashes to the ground like a sack of shit, unconscious, and Harry pockets his gun in case Fauntleroy gets any funny ideas. The pilot's not a problem, he's curled up like a foetus in his seat with his eyes wide and his hands above his head in surrender; Harry ignores him after a glance, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind whether he might be able to get a helicopter ride to the ground instead of taking sixty floors in a lift. Travel in style, etc.

"I'd look at rehiring my security staff if I were you," Harry says conversationally, keeping step with Fauntleroy as he literally backs himself into a corner. "Absolutely appalling. I haven't won a fight this quickly since Geoffrey Thwaites called me a scoundrel in Fifth Form."

Fauntleroy's blond hair is falling into his eyes. He looks like Boris Johnson's more pathetic younger brother, soft and plump like something found living under a rock; it hardly seems worth the effort of apprehending him when he looks like he's going to melt like a blob of butter in the sunlight. Harry wonders whether it's Arthur or Merlin he's annoyed this time, to be given such a wet squib of a job, and swallows back an irritated sigh.

"What do you want?" Fauntleroy asks, shaky and wide-eyed. He's got a whiny, reedy sort of voice, the aural equivalent of what it feels like to skin your knees; Harry's got the sudden urge to _shake him_ , tell him to bloody man up.

"I'll take that briefcase, if you don't mind. Give me the key to the handcuffs, there's a good lad, and I won't have to get blood all over our handsome suits."

His voice is scared and plaintive, chin starting to wobble alarmingly. "I swallowed it."

Wonderful. "Well, I have no intention of waiting around here to pick through your shit, Mr Fauntleroy, so I suggest you vomit it back out and then thoroughly clean it on your sleeve. It's either that, or..." He taps his heels together smartly and the blade shoots out from the toe of his shoe, gleaming diamond-bright in the afternoon sun. "I can open your stomach for you, or remove your hand."

"Laying it on a bit thick, Galahad," Merlin says in his ear, but he's got that tone in his voice he uses when he's talking about a book he's really enjoying, and Harry struggles not to smirk. It doesn't seem to work; Fauntleroy's looking a bit sick now, which is actually for the best, so Harry gives up trying not to and lets his grin spread wide, toothy and malicious like a shark.

"Do you need me to count you in?" he enquires politely, and Fauntleroy hastily shoves his fingers down his throat and starts retching.

Twenty minutes later, after cuffing and darting Fauntleroy because his snivelling was getting tiresome and leaving him on a bench in front of the building for the police to collect, Harry strolls away with the briefcase full of blueprints towards his extraction point. "Mission accomplished. I presume this completes my punishment?"

"What are you talking about?" Merlin asks in his ear, sounding like he's half-laughing.

"I thought I must have upset you or Arthur in some way, but you're both so touchy I never know what's got your knickers in a twist. Give me something more difficult next time, would you?"

"There's something in Argentina if you fancy it. Might be some skiing involved. I could get you one of those—" Merlin makes a _vroom vroom_ noise "—snow scooter thingummies. Hostage retrieval situation, but you'd need to leave immediately."

"God no, not snow. I'm still in recovery from the incident in the Himalayas with the duchess and the, well, you know. Come to think of it, that might be why Arthur's in such a sulk," Harry muses. The Kingsman cab reaches the corner right on time and he slides into the back, setting the briefcase down so he can pour himself a measure of the Macallan waiting in the decanter. "Send Lancelot, it'll stop him bragging about that fucking six-week mission he had in St Tropez. Oh, and Merlin?"

"Mm?"

"Be a dear and book me a ticket for the last night of Manon."

"For the fifteenth time this month, Galahad, I am not your secretary."

Harry slumps down in his seat, loosening his tie and flicking open the top few buttons of his shirt. "And send some flowers backstage while you're at it. I'm going to have a nap, I'll collect from the box office."

He taps the side of his glasses to close the line before Merlin can call him a dirty old man, because a thing being regrettably true doesn't mean he needs to hear it a dozen times a week, and settles down for a sleep.

*

_He dreams: the sort of dream that hovers in the hinterland between awake and asleep, the daydreams he should be old enough to repress curling like wisps of smoke around the filth that lurks in his subconscious. He can hear music, the faint lyrical strains of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Massenet, Delibes, a tangled mess of sound—_

_And he can hear a voice, his name whispered through a smile. He dreams he can feel the imagined ghost-touch of fingers on his nape, in his hair, dragging slow across the bare stretch of his chest and leaving goosebumps in their wake, and a mouth, warm, hovering a breath and a kiss away from his own. He dreams there's skin beneath his palms, hot and flushed and damp with sweat, thrumming muscles, arching tendons, the languid sprawl of arms and thighs, and the stretch of a long neck, golden in the dusty theatre lights and marked with a single freckle, like the X on a treasure map: kiss here._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flowers and Jägerbombs and uncertainty and backseat taxi flirting, and Merlin is the sort of absolute monster that only best friends know how to be.
> 
>  
> 
> _After an eternal moment, Merlin says casually, "Good god, he's like a Millais painting with a dirty mouth," and Harry has never wanted to punch him in the face this badly before._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a scene from the ballet mentioned, Manon. You will not regret these five minutes. http://youtu.be/7ZrqK1MUD20

Harry weaves his way through the crowds leaving the opera house, umbrella still furled in his hand despite the sudden rain. It's so fine that it seems to hang in the air rather than fall, cool on his burning cheeks and misting his glasses like the soft-focus of old films. London looks sepia and gold tonight, curiously quaint even despite its blaring traffic and the squares of illuminated iPhone screens all around him; mismatched old buildings lean against one another like drunken friends falling out of a pub. It's not often that he feels anything for the city, really – it's home, and it's work, and it's always been there and always will be – but every so often the weight of its history feels like a cloak around his shoulders or the extra blanket he dumps on his bed when the nights get cold, heavy and insistently _present_.

"You're very quiet," Merlin says in his ear, ruining what was shaping up to be a very satisfying moment of maudlin self-indulgence. "Thinking about someone's thighs, are we?"

"Don't you have hobbies, Merlin?"

"Technically, until you return that briefcase to the shop or HQ and fill out the necessary paperwork, we're both still on the clock."

"Well, I'm going home to sleep. I suggest you do the same. It'll be quite safe until the morning." Out on the main road among the throngs of people and stuttering stop-start of cars, Harry spots the Kingsman cab pulling up to the kerb. "I'll say goodni—"

"Oi, taxi!" someone yells, and Harry feels a jolt of pain on his almost-forgotten bruises as the person jostles his arm trying to get past. "Shit, fuck, bruv, sorry!"

After an eternal moment, Merlin says casually, "Good god, he's like a Millais painting with a dirty mouth," and Harry has never wanted to punch him in the face this badly before.

"You alright?" Gary Covington Himself asks. He's all wide green eyes and ridiculous pointed groomed eyebrows and fucking _dimples_ clinging to the sides of a cautious little smile. His hand's clutching Harry's forearm, steadying him but actually doing the exact opposite: Harry feels a bit like he's melting, a collapsing candle folding in on itself when it's stood too close to a fire, which is a fairly ridiculous way for anyone past the age of fourteen to feel about anything, never mind fifty. "Didn't meant to go fuckin' barging through like that but it's a bastard and a half tryna get a taxi after the show, you get me?"

"I. Yes." Harry clears his throat and stands up straighter, ignoring Merlin's muffled snort of laughter. "Yes, I, er, get you."

"Sound. Well, nice bumping into you, yeah?"

"Actually," Harry says. He thinks he's hiding it pretty well, all things considered – things like _being a professional spy_ and also a sophisticated adult man who knows how to speak to other humans without feeling like his mouth is full of marbles – but inside his head there's a sickening sort of roar, the bombast of over-extravagant jubilee fireworks rolling around in the fizz of champagne bubbles. Which, come to think of it, he did consume a quite unnecessary amount of 1982 Dom Pérignon in his box during the performance because it was there and his mouth kept going oddly dry every time Des Grieux ran onto the stage in tights that were so, well, _tight_ that they might as well not have been there at all. "This is my, um, private car."

"Very smooth, Harry."

Merlin is having far too much fun at Harry's expense and it's unacceptable. Harry narrows his eyes at his own reflection in the dark cab windows and hopes the death threat is readable, then remembers who's standing beside him and hastily smooths his expression back into one of mild, bland politeness – which is easier said than done, especially when Gary slowly lifts one of his (perfect, perfect) eyebrows in disbelief.

"Yeah, mate, pull the other one, it's a fuckin' cab like all the others. Fair play, though, you did get here first, so..."

"Harry, no."

 _Harry YES_ , Harry thinks decisively, and opens the door, ignoring Merlin's despairing groan in his ear. "I'm afraid it really is my car, look."

"You got a fuckin' _bar_ in your ride, bruv?" Both his eyebrows are up now, delighted grin on his (perfect, perfect) mouth. "That's just showing off, mate, what's wrong with a Guinness in the local like everyone else?"

"I'm rather partial to a Guinness in the local—"

"Very smooth, Harry."

" _Shh_."

Gary gives him a weird look. "I never said nothing."

"Don't tell him 'I wasn't talking to you'," Merlin suggests in a syrupy 'helpful' sort of tone, the one he uses when Harry's ignoring his advice out on a mission. "He'll never get in your car if he thinks you hear voices."

"May I offer you a lift?" Harry asks desperately. Maybe desperately. It sounds pretty desperate in his head, but perhaps he's just letting Merlin's taunting get the better of him – Gary's bent over to get a better look at the beautiful leather seats and polished wood interior, grinning to himself like a kid who's just seen Santa.

"Nah, mate, don't go out of your way on my account. This is _nice_."

("Jesus, you could bounce a pound coin off his arse."

 _I will kill you_ , Harry signs in front of his glasses where Gary can't see.

"Stop looking at it, then, and I'll have nothing to comment on.")

"Where are you heading?"

"Clerkenwell."

"That's on my way, so..."

Merlin sighs in disgust and mutters _liar_. Gary twists back to look at Harry from beneath the brim of his cap, standing up straight and giving him a considering sort of once-over, that touch of a smile back in place on his lips. "Well. Yeah, alright, if you're sure it ain't no trouble?"

"None at all."

He's got some sort of ritual before he gets in, snapping pictures of the number plate and Harry's face, tapping on the driver's window and telling him _say cheese, bruv_ , then frowning down at his phone screen and tapping rapidly at the keyboard. "No offence, yeah?" he says, glancing quickly up at Harry. "Just, Rox gets narky if I tell her to do this then don't do it myself."

("Wise lad. He knows your game."

 _I will kill you. Get off the line._ )

"Of course," Harry says politely, and waits in the misty rain for Gary to finish and get in the car so he can slide in beside him. There's a dreadful roiling in his stomach, the cliché of butterflies turned up to eleven, threatening to warp his voice into a stupid squeak most unbecoming of a middle-aged man, although when he dares to speak again he sounds just the same as ever. "Roxanne Morton?"

"Yeah." Gary gives him a sideways grin then his gaze flickers down to the seat between them, hand smoothing reverently across the fine leather. "Dunno why I let her boss me around, she's meeting some pervert off Tinder tonight so she can't talk about stranger danger."

"Ha," Harry says vaguely, then winces because he is a fucking incoherent idiot. "I don't know what Tinder is."

"Do you know what Grindr is?" Gary asks, giving him another innocent sideways look.

("Well," Merlin says, "I think it's about time I signed off and also shot myself in the head.")

"No. Should I?"

"I dunno. No, don't fuckin' google it right now!" He makes a grab at Harry's phone, closes Safari, and hands it back to him. "Fucksake. Sorry, don't listen to me, I'm fuckin' _wired_ after shows, it takes like an hour and a half to come down off the trip, my mouth just don't know when to stop," and dear god isn't that just the most crippling mental image Harry's ever had in his life?

("I'm not really going," Merlin says, because Merlin is an utter bastard. "I'm googling him. I'll read you the good parts.")

"You were tremendous," Harry tells him, "both of you," but it sounds awkward and false, a bit sort of stilted and far too formal for something that shook him to the soul and made all the fine hairs on the back of his neck fight each other to be the first to stand. The pair of them looked like animation, or like they were flying, hovering at the apex of leaps for so long it seemed almost inhuman, and there was a crackling electricity between them that seemed to reach out into the darkness of the stalls and drag everybody closer until they were _there_ in the bedroom, and the party, and dying in Louisiana. "You were..." He gives up and reaches out for the whiskey decanter and a couple of glasses instead, feeling like a fucking idiot. "Well, I don't know anything about ballet, really. Drink?"

"Jägerbomb?" Gary suggests, with a fleeting grin indicating that he already knows what the answer is. Something hot and horrid curls through Harry's stomach, sparking a shudder of goosebumps right up his back. It's appalling, really, this – whatever the bloody hell it is. People have been telling him for years that his mid-life crisis is overdue, but having such a pathetic one when it finally arrives is just abominably galling.

"Afraid not. Whiskey, gin?"

"You got any mixers?"

"Ice."

He's laughing a bit. "I'm alright, thanks."

("'Covington shares a flat with fellow Royal Ballet dancers Roxanne Morton and Charles Hesketh, three dogs, and six million pairs of trainers.' Well, that scuppers it, you're doomed from the start. You'll never fit all his shoes and your dead animals in the same house.")

"Right. Well, then." Harry considers just downing the entire decanter and the backup bottle hidden behind the panel to try and erase this entire hideous encounter from his mind, but that's probably not the most sensible way to deal with things. He puts the decanter and glasses back in their place and fumbles around for something to say. "Why do you have wings on your trainers?"

"Why not?"

"I see."

The silence is suffocating. Apparently they're going to Clerkenwell via Stornaway; surely they should be there by now, and then this fucking nightmare can fade away into a vague uneasy feeling of embarrassment for something that never really happened.

"Mate," Gary says suddenly, "I never asked your name."

Harry's instinct is to give a false one – he usually does, when it's an encounter that doesn't matter, and it's usually some ridiculous pun to try and make Merlin choke laughing on his tea – but his mouth blurts out the answer before his brain has time to think of something. "I'm Harry Hart."

"Gary Covington."

"Yes, I know," Harry says – and a miracle happens, something biblical and marvellous, when he clasps Gary's offered hand: something _settles_. The queasy feeling of climbing up and up on a rollercoaster without ever reaching the peak seems to fade, and he feels like he can breathe again. Gary's palm is warm in his, fingers pressing lightly against Harry's.

"Gary's, like, my posh name. I know it ain't really posh, but you know. My friends call me Eggsy."

It sounds weirdly familiar, like perhaps it's the name of a film character or something. "Why?"

"I dunno. My dad called me that when I was little, it just kind of stuck."

Merlin's gone very quiet, finally, which is nice.

"And what about people who offer you lifts home from work, what do they call you?"

A tilt of the head, and a slowly spreading smile. "Depends."

"On?"

He's still grasping Harry's hand, fingers slackened but thumb now moving in hot little circles over his skin. His eyelashes are absurdly long against his cheeks when he drops his eyes to watch. "I dunno. On how _friendly_ you wanna be, I spose."

Harry takes a long breath in, and slowly lets it out. His heart is thudding a drumroll in his chest, but his head feels clearer than it has all night – he's on familiar ground here, flirting with a younger man in the back of a taxi. His own fault that Merlin taunts, really.

"Well, Eggsy," he starts, and Gary – Eggsy – laughs and shifts a fraction closer on the seat.

"So, I been getting flowers all season from H.H. And I never even looked at the cards at first, I just assumed they was for Rox cos they usually are. Then I read one, to Gary, from H.H. And I was like who the fuck's H.H.? Mystery admirer, is that creepy? Is that cool? I dunno. Spose shit like that depends on the person, hey. And here you are, looking at me like I fuckin' hung the stars, telling me your name's Harry Hart."

"Wikipedia," Merlin says. He sounds like he's in moderate pain. "Born Gary Luke Unwin, Covington took his stepfather's surname when his mother remarried."

"So, I dunno, I spose I'm just wondering now if you're the flower guy. I mean, if you're not that's alright. But if you are, you know, that's like fate or some shit, you get me? And that means if I invite you up for a Jägerbomb you ain't allowed to say no. Chick flick rules."

Harry's smile feels frozen there, or tattooed. Stretched there with pins and marionette strings. _Fuck_.

"I'm terribly sorry, Eggsy, I have to fly to Argentina tonight on business."

Quietly in his ear, Merlin says, "I'll hold the plane. Quick as you can if you really want to go."

"Shame." Eggsy's face flickers into doubt, a frown and a slightly wounded look in his eyes, then he grins again, carefree and unruffled, and finally lets Harry's hand go so he can reposition his hat. "Hey, bruv," he calls to the driver, "I'm just up here on the left, yeah?"

"It was truly wonderful to meet you," Harry tells him through a mouth that suddenly feels numb and stupid, because it _was_ wonderful. It was also fucking terrible in far too many ways, but it wouldn't be polite to say so.

"Yeah," Eggsy says. "You too." Then he taps on the window after he's slammed the door shut until Harry presses the button to roll it down, and Eggsy's face appears there, confused and hopeful and achingly, unfairly, unattainably beautiful. "Just, like, for future reference," he says slowly, like he's not sure exactly what to say until he's saying it. "If you want. The lilies made me sneeze like fuck but all them roses were, you know. Really lovely. Nobody's ever gave me roses before."

And then, because his impulse control is a wild beast that can't be tamed, Harry reaches for Eggsy's hand and brings it to his mouth to press a gentle kiss there just above his knuckles. It makes Eggsy suck in a surprised breath and blow it back out in a wavering little sigh, and Harry can't resist doing it again, lingering a moment longer, before releasing him.

"Goodnight, Eggsy."

"Night, Harry."

Midway through the three-point turn – because he _is_ a liar, Clerkenwell is the exact opposite direction to where he lives – Harry grabs the whiskey decanter and takes a huge burning swig right from it, because what else is there to do?

"Merlin," says Galahad, cool and calm and all business. "I'll be at HQ in half an hour."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another couple of scenes from Manon, if you're interested:
> 
> http://youtu.be/NOt_aI6GI4w  
> http://youtu.be/-WYuRTg4IlM


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy interlude after Harry flees the scene in a moral panic.
> 
> _"Not that I'm remotely interested," Charlie asks after a moment, drawling slow and somehow managing to give the words barbs, "but why have you got a hard on?"_
> 
> _"I dunno. The pleasure of your company, I suppose."_

It's probably for the best, Eggsy tells himself miserably as the car roars away. There's a list a fucking mile long of reasons why getting in a stranger's car in the first place was a shit idea – not least that he's exhausted, and he reeks enough to make his own head spin because he wanted to escape the last-night chaos and shower in peace at home.

Definitely for the best, he stubbornly insists as he's unlocking the door and trudging up the two flights of stairs to the loft, hauling himself by the banister for the last few steps because his burning leg muscles feel like they're about to go on a mass strike.

Then, full force like a one-two punch, he accidentally thinks about the kisses pressed to the back of his hand and the sudden tingle of goosebumps rushing up the length of his arm: how Harry's fingers had reached for his where he'd curled them around the top edge of the half-open window, the warmth of Harry's palm and the careful brush of his thumb across Eggsy's knuckles before he bent his head and kissed him there. As if the dressing room filled twice a week with an entire rainbow of roses wasn't enough, the wanker had to go and pull a thing like that.

"Oh fuck," Eggsy whispers, "I'm _fucked_." Except not. For a moment he leans his cheek against the brick wall at the top of the stairs, trying to chill the rising fire there – trying to stop thinking about warm brown eyes _gazing_ at him the way he'd once felt himself gazing at Roberto Bolle on stage in Milan, like a fucking heart eyes emoji, and the tiny sideways smile and the beautiful long fingers drawing his hand into the kiss. The hand kiss. That fucking kiss. So absurdly corny it was almost funny, but—

"Eggy, get your filthy sweaty head off the wall. Who fucking raised you?"

Eggsy groans at that, making it louder and dragging it out longer than he really needs to, and in a petty show of defiance grinds his forehead harder into the bricks for maximum mutinous sweat dispersal. It doesn't exactly help – actually it kind of hurts – but Charlie gives him a poisonous sort of look so it's totally worth it. Eggsy _actually smiles_ as he's flinging himself at the sofa. Rejected by a walking fantasy he thought was a sure thing: bad. Annoying Charlie: always, always amazing.

"How did it go?" Charlie asks. Prick doesn't even bother looking up from Candy Crush or Pornhub or whatever the fuck it is he's doing on his phone. He sounds bored, like the sort of polite thank you that your mum makes you say to an aunt you don't like for a Christmas present you didn't want.

"Alright. Rox fuckin' stormed it, reckon the curtain calls went on longer than the whole last act."

"Fascinating."

"Flower guy sent me roses again."

"I don't care."

"Gimme the remote." He holds his hand out for it, laughing a bit at the palm full of snuffly pug nose and woolly poodle fur he gets instead when JB and Pyotr come running in from the bedroom. Montague looks at Eggsy warily from his place beside Charlie's chair, giving a single mumbled little _woof_ before he settles back down with his nose between his paws. Bit stupid to believe someone's turning his dog against you, but if the evidence is there...

"No, I'm watching this."

"No you fuckin' ain't, bruv, you're on your phone. You don't even know what's on."

"Of course I do." Charlie glances up then and presses the info button on one of the remotes he's hoarding in his lap, reading from the telly. "It's Celebrity Dinner Date, in which actor and tv presenter Joe Swash chooses three unsuspecting ladies to date based on the menus he most likes the look—"

"Give me a fuckin' break. Also the remote."

"Fuck _off_ , Eggy, I'm watching this." He notches the volume up another few points then goes back to swiping his phone. Eggsy takes a moment to visualise in his mind, in 3D technicolour high-definition detail, exactly what it'd look like to punch Charlie right in the middle of his fucking smug hateful face – a brain activity Roxy used to tell him was a bit childish until she tried it herself one day and seemed to find some kind of new inner peace – then heaves himself back to his aching feet and past Charlie's armchair to the fridge.

"You want a drink?" he calls, and Charlie yells back, "Yeah, camomile tea."

"Go and make one, then." Eggsy slaps his very best smirk on his face, returning to the sofa with a lunchbox full of salmon salad, and a bottle of ice water he chugs while Charlie gives him a vicious look like nothing in the world has ever offended him so badly before.

"Not that I'm remotely interested," he asks after a moment, drawling slow and somehow managing to give the words barbs, "but why have you got a hard on?"

"I dunno. The pleasure of your company, I suppose."

"Do you want a hand with that?"

Eggsy almost chokes on a broccoli floret. "What the fuck? Not from _you_!"

"Oh please, like you deserve the privilege." He can almost feel Charlie's eyes on him and stares down into his lunchbox, scowling, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response, but Charlie's in a fucker of a mood tonight and just keeps on pushing. "There was a tramp going through the bins over the road earlier," he says, voice moving smug and plummy over the vowels. He poshes his voice up around Eggsy even more than it naturally is: it always feels like yet another red flag marking the boundaries of _us_ and _you_ , as if Eggsy doesn't have enough of those to navigate already in this job. "I'm sure he'd love to get hold of some more absolute garbage."

"What kind of fuckin' insult even is that?" he snaps, then balls his hand into a fist and smashes it hard into a cushion, frustrated with himself for giving in so quickly.

"Temper, temper," Charlie tells him, wagging one long finger admonishingly in front of his massive shit-eating grin.

 _I fucking hate you_ , Eggsy wants to say.

Or, _you are such a fucking vile prick, I hope you set yourself on fire next time you cook and there's nobody around to piss you out_.

Or, because he's a sensible grown-up with a reasonable grasp on how to be the bigger man, _Goodnight, Charlie, I'm getting a shower and going to bed_.

What actually happens is probably not the best course of action but feels fucking amazing: Eggsy balances the lunchbox in his palm and hefts it with every last scrap of strength at Charlie's face. There's a long, suspended moment where he can see Charlie's shifting expression almost in slow motion, smug amusement to surprise to rage when the plastic rim of the box clips his jaw and spills the last of the food all down his collar.

"Are you _fucking insane_?" he yells – screams, almost, shrill and frankly hilarious, shooting out of his chair and scattering bits of couscous and watercress and pomegranate seeds all over the floor. The dogs go wild, barking joyfully and dancing around him in circles while he's trying to brush himself off. "Fucking Dad's gonna hear about this!"

"Alright, Malfoy, calm—"

"You tell me to calm down and I will swing this lamp at your _fucking cock_."

"—down."

" _Right_ ," is his anguished war-cry, and Eggsy can't stop laughing even when Charlie's got him in a headlock, like they're scuffling schoolboys again. Charlie always got off lightly back then, fucking spoiled golden boy making up exactly the right lie every time to cover himself, because his dad was the head and he knew exactly how to play him. It didn't matter; to Eggsy, the detentions and lines and threats of suspension were totally worth those few beautiful, glorious moments of getting one over on the prick who'd looked him up and down on his very first day and asked, to a round of laughter from his halfwit cronies, _where'd they dig you up?_

"You bruise me you're in fucking trouble, bruv," Eggsy protests, though he's still laughing helplessly at the slapped-arse look on Charlie's face. "Photoshoot tomorrow."

"So wear more fucking makeup," Charlie snarls, manoeuvring to dig his knee painfully into the side of Eggsy's ribs and a forearm hard across the front of his neck. "Why can't you just, just—"

"Yeah?" Eggsy taunts, wriggling beneath him almost enough to get free, landing a couple of hard thumps with the side of his fist right on the place a dead arm hurts the most.

"Just _fuck off_!" Charlie finishes, a bit lamely, grabbing at Eggsy's wrists to stop the blows. "What are you even _for_ , you don't belong here, everyone's fucking laughing at you—" But it's a jibe that lost its bite ages ago, in increments as they rose steadily through the ranks at exactly the same pace and then all at once when they were both made principals for the previous season.

"Nobody's laughing at me," Eggsy says.

He doesn't mean it to come out quite the way it does – fierce and proud and utterly calm – and it's a surprise to them both, slackening Charlie's grip on his wrists and making Eggsy stop his squirming so when they're both finally still it's with Charlie astride his hips, fingers resting loosely against Eggsy's thudding pulse points.

"So," Charlie says. He shifts in place, not like he's trying to get up, but like he's trying to get comfortable exactly where he is, with his arse in his thin marl sweatpants snugged close against Eggsy's cock, still heavy and half-hard from those few minutes of what felt like promise in the car. "Is this the part where we have fucking amazing I hate you and want you dead sex and don't tell Roxy?"

"Yeah, pretty sure this ain't that kinda movie, bruv."

He tries another struggle, more of a test-struggle than a real one, going still again when he feels the press of Charlie's fingertips in his wrists and a horribly familiar sinking feeling in his stomach: _Oh fuck, not again. Well, no point letting a stiffy go to waste_.

"Could be that kind of movie," Charlie says casually. There's sweat on his upper lip and a flush in his cheeks. And a pomegranate seed stuck above his eyebrow, which Eggsy picks off and eats.

"I'm on top and I ain't kissing your rank mouth."

"Fine."

"Also I'm gonna be thinking about your dad," Eggsy adds, just because a fight isn't finished until he gets the last word, and Charlie pulls back from what feels suspiciously like an attempted neck-kiss to stare at him in disbelief.

"Well, you've fucking blown your chance now, deal's off."

"Yeah, right," Eggsy says, pushing Charlie off him and stripping out of his jacket and t-shirt, walking backwards to his bedroom door in the corner and smirking when he sees Charlie's eyes drop predictably to the tight ridges of ribs and muscles. "Heel, boy."

"I _fucking hate you_ ," Charlie spits, following after him like an obedient puppy, and Eggsy reaches for the hem of his jumper, yanking him into the room and telling him, hot and muffled against his neck, "Like that's ever been a problem before."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Professor Arnold," Harry says to the bewildered-looking hostage, as James is dealing with the last of the enemy and shamelessly stealing his whiskey. "We're here to take you home."
> 
> "1962 Dalmore," James calls. When Harry looks over he's raising the glass like a toast, smirking – _to us, because we're brilliant_. "It'd be a sin to spill any, don't you think?"

"Briefcase, Galahad," Merlin says when Harry steps out of the train, taking it from him and holding out a green mission folder and stuffed brown paper bag in exchange. "Mission details, pyjamas because I really think you should try to get some sleep on the plane, and sandwiches because you're an idiot and didn't bother with any sustenance before trying to get laid."

"Darling, this is why people think we're married." He tries a sideways smirk as Merlin's gesturing him through the door to the stairs, and it feels reasonably genuine. There are worse things than being rescued from making a fool of oneself, after all – like _not_ being rescued, going through with it and finding out the truth too late.

"If we were married I promise you there'd be fewer young blonds on your glasses videos," Merlin tells him sternly, but he drops the pretence just before they reach the door to the hangar and quietly asks, "Harry. Are you alright? Bit of a shock."

"I'm fine."

"I'm bloody not and I wasn't the one trying to get my mouth on his—"

" _Thank you_ , Merlin," Harry tells him firmly, and hurries through the door and up the plane steps with his sack of sandwiches. James is already there, pyjamas on and red dressing gown knotted around his trim waist, yanking the pull-out bed from the base of the sofa and swearing a blue streak when he manages to pinch his finger in a spring.

"Evening, Galahad," he says jovially when he spots Harry, sucking his reddened fingertip and attempting to snag the elastic corners of a fitted sheet over the thin mattress with only one hand. "Heard you tried to shag Lee Unwin's son."

"Merlin told _you_?" Harry blurts, too surprised to self-censor. "He might as well have put it on a fucking billboard."

"On my honour, I won't tell a soul. I mean," James adds carelessly as he's searching for pillows in the wardrobe, " _obviously_ I told Percy, and Bors overheard, but other than that your dirty secret is safe with me. Oh, and I told Gawain. Now, look, we can sleep in shifts if you'd rather not share, or—"

"I'm not tired," Harry tells him crossly, and flings himself into an armchair with slightly more petulance than is really necessary so he can start reading through his mission folder.

"Harry," James says after a minute. He sounds uncharacteristically subdued. "I apologise. Not really the time for japes, is it?"

Unbelievable. "No, I can't say it is."

"I swear I've not said a word to anyone. And Merlin didn't tell me – I went in for my briefing and he was turning green at the boy's Wikipedia page. I deduced the rest for myself. I _am_ a spy, you know." James hangs his dressing gown up in the wardrobe then and crawls into bed, stretching out long and lithe under the sheets on his side with his cheek propped up on one hand. It gives Harry a horrible jolting sort of flashback to the morning after the HQ Christmas party in 2006, gathering his scattered socks and underwear and bits of his suit with as much dignity as he could manage through his hangover, while James rolled about in bed alternating between laughing and groaning, and Percival, covers pulled primly up to his armpits like an actress in a 12-rated film, said _gentlemen, I believe the generally accepted rule is that if we don't remember it then it never happened_. "Would you like some advice, old chap?"

"Absolutely fucking not, thank you very much."

James ignores him and carries on anyway, as Harry knew he would. "A man of your fine vintage—"

"I'd stop right there if I were you," Harry tells him, tapping his watch face threateningly until James raises his hands in agreeable surrender and settles down to sleep. Minutes later he's snoring lightly. While the idea of several hours of blissful blackout is alluring after the day Harry's had and the job they're flying towards across the Atlantic, the thought of getting into bed beside that infernal noise makes his skin crawl a bit and he can't bring himself to do it just yet.

Whatever you do, he tells himself, don't google image search for Eggsy in tights.

Twenty-seven pages deep he's just finding the same images he's already seen but smaller, so he turns to YouTube instead, vaguely ashamed that he doesn't even have to do a search: most of the videos in his recommended list are of Eggsy already, on stage, in rehearsals, in interviews, pranking Charlie Hesketh for his vlog channel. He selects one he's already seen – of the 16,894 hits, Harry's pretty sure at least fourteen thousand of them were him – and taps play, settling back in his chair as the familiar Prokofiev music starts sighing softly out of the speaker.

Roxanne twirls across the rehearsal studio on pointe, black practice dress flowing around her slender legs like smoke, and Harry watches Eggsy watch her: Eggsy, wearing tights the colour of merlot down to his knees, dirty battered shoes, a grey t-shirt stained dark with sweat, kneels on the floor as she spins around him and then he catches her by the hand, by the waist, and Harry can feel sweat springing hot at his temples and the hollow of his throat. He pushes the slider along a few more seconds to find the part where Eggsy picks her up, hands spread wide across her ribcage. It tugs at the memory of another video, an interview in the dressing room thirty seconds after coming off stage one time: Eggsy's wide green eyes and the hunger that was still in them, as though he wanted nothing in the world except to get back in front of the curtain and do it all over again. The glow of his sweat, how strange and false his makeup looked up close, the pink lines pressed into his flushed skin by the edges of his costume. The way he'd laughed at the interviewer's enthusiastic gushing question about how difficult it must be to throw Roxanne about the way he did and said _nah, bruv, Roxy don't weigh nothing anyway, light as a peacock feather and twice as pretty_ before she appeared from somewhere and kissed him loudly on the cheek, tucked a flower from her bouquet behind his ear, and whispered conspiratorially to the camera _I paid him to say that_. There was something about the way the two of them behaved together – everybody saw it, the speculation was all over the place, people insisting that this gorgeous golden couple _must_ be an item, surely.

But there she was meeting _some pervert off Tinder_ while Eggsy was doing something in a taxi with a strange old man that was so far beyond flirting it wasn't even orbiting the same sun. That hadn't been flirting, that had been an outright offer, which – it's not as though he's ever had any trouble finding somebody to share a taxi with, as it were, nor has he ever been the sort not to indulge in a good thing when it's on offer, but _that face_ and _that revelation_ sprung upon him in such quick succession were, combined, a little too much like the bizarre warped dreams one gets during a fever. As if he doesn't already have a world of apologies to make to Lee in the afterlife without this as well—

Of course Harry falls asleep in his armchair and has a dream of such magnificent filthiness that he's almost afraid to look in the mirror when he wakes up some hours later, stiff in the trousers and red in the cheeks, fearing he might see Satan's face there instead of his own. Something about Eggsy – of course – but the details slip through his fingers like water the harder he tries to recall them. Something about hands – a hand in his hair, another deftly unfastening buttons, and a cock huge and thrilling and insistently thrusting into his mouth and throat with the sort of desperate ferocity he's always really fucking loved even though it's difficult to speak the day after indulging without sounding a bit like Tom Waits. Something about Eggsy's arse – god, his _glorious_ arse, Harry's got the urge to write a sonnet or something about it or maybe commission somebody to sculpt it in marble for his front hallway – and something about the hot wet slide of skin, taut muscles, a pair of golden tanned thighs and the sensation of his cock driving between them above the stretch of merlot-red tights neither of them could be patient enough to remove properly.

There's a quiet beep from his glasses, the comms line opening, and Merlin's voice says, "Your heart rate is off the scale. Something wrong?"

"Everything's bloody wrong," Harry says in despair, and goes to lock himself in the tiny plane bathroom for a miserable cold shower so he can finally get into bed next to James without causing a scene neither of them is particularly eager to repeat.

* * *

They land silently, drifting on white parachutes through the air to a flat patch of snow high in the Andes and quickly stripping their outerwear away until they're standing there in the shadow of the cliff face in their suits, Harry with his Rainmaker and James with his favourite guns and throwing knives. It's one thing in James' favour: he's as enthusiastic about the whole _modern gentleman's armour_ gimmick as Harry is. Whether a full three piece suit is, well, suitable in this sort of environment is completely irrelevant – they concentrate better and fight better when dressed to the nines, whatever the situation. It does have the unfortunate effect of making James act a bit like Austin Powers or the corniest of the Bonds on occasion – _borrow a cup of sugar?_ Harry mutters and hears Merlin sigh in his ear, long and long-suffering – but he fights like an absolute dream, surging into the cabin full-force and taking out the first two of the kidnappers before Harry can even raise his umbrella. The fight is quick and brutal – almost a dance, of sorts, the way he and James weave around one another in practiced, intricate patterns to provide themselves the most cover as they shoot – and over in what seems like moments, barely long enough to be out of breath.

"Professor Arnold," Harry says to the bewildered-looking hostage, as James is dealing with the last of the enemy and shamelessly stealing his whiskey. "We're here to take you home."

"1962 Dalmore," James calls. When Harry looks over he's raising the glass like a toast, smirking – _to us, because we're brilliant_. "It'd be a sin to spill any, don't you think?"

Then there's a knock on the door, which is fairly low down on the list of things Harry expected to happen next.

"What do we think," James murmurs, not taking his eyes off the blurred shape of a figure at the other side of the door glass, "window salesman or somebody inviting us to accept Jesus?"

"I'd say someone with even more nefarious intentions. _Careful_ ," Harry warns quietly as James is drawing his gun again and stepping closer, although as it turns out James isn't the one who should be taking extra care. There's the sudden metallic _swish_ of something moving, whip-like, through the air, and only a reflex faster than thought saves him from being sliced in two: Harry flings himself out of the way of a blade seemingly sharpened to an edge that's atom-thin, just enough that it tears a long line down the front of his shirt, popping off the line of buttons and leaving him with a shallow graze cut so cleanly and swiftly from collarbones to navel that it doesn't even hurt. Across the room he hears James swear, then the click of him reloading and a round of sharp gunshots as Harry's throwing his Rainmaker back open to shield himself and Professor Arnold.

Merlin's voice in his ear is steady, calming. "Galahad, aim and fire." But it's easier said than done: the woman with the blade – or blades, plural, which Harry had assumed were swords but are actually incredible prosthetics – moves like a pinball, fast and frenetic, spinning and soaring and almost seeming to fly as she tries to literally shred James to death. In the moment, Harry's as utterly focused on the job as always, decades of training and missions having honed his concentration as sharp as her legs – but he wonders later, winding down on the plane home with a triple whiskey, whether it was her strange almost-resemblance to Eggsy and Roxanne that made him flick the Rainmaker from _kill_ to _stun_ before he followed the arc of the woman's leap and fired at her chest. She's moving too quickly and the shot merely skims her arm instead of landing true, but it's enough to make her abandon the fight and sprint for the door, dragging whoever knocked on it along with her and vanishing down the mountain on, going by the sound of the engines, a couple of those scooter things Merlin promised.

The cabin is dead silent after that, before James says, "Well, bloody hell," which seems to cover it. "Anybody else ready for home?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Photo is RL Disney Prince Roberto Bolle. SWOON.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INTERLUDE: A terrible Petrarchan sonnet about a dirty old man and a nice bum, aka the trash that ends up on my post-its during boring work meetings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my disgusting darlings Rimbaud and Verlaine who are responsible for unquestionably the finest piece of trolling ever written in sonnet form about a bum: <http://www.practicalalchemy.com/troudecul.htm>

The theatre is alive; it breathes. Within  
the gaudy grandeur of its royal walls,  
its soul feeds well on wonder from the halls  
where dreamers come to see what might have been.  
The overture, the lyric violins,  
piano, flute, seduce among the stalls  
two thousand people waiting there, enthralled,  
in silence just before the show begins.

Listen. Nothing. A room of aching lungs  
all poised to sigh but waiting, waiting, then  
a susurrus of chemistry sets tongues  
alight with murmured rapture once again:  
_He soars_. His tights are riding up his arse.  
The pervert in the suit is seeing stars.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In another life, Roxy is probably a spy or something.

Eggsy's days have become a long monotonous repetition of eat, rehearse, check phone, eat, rehearse, check phone, eat, check phone fifteen times at twenty-second intervals while standing in a room full of fresh roses so vivid and perfect that they almost look fake, perform some nights, check phone, eat, check phone, wank. Occasionally there's a bit of sleep in there as well.

"Possibly a stupid question, but did you actually give him your number?" Roxy says after one class. "Asking because you've told me the story at least nine million times in microscopic detail right down to how good his pores look, but you've never mentioned the moment you swapped numbers."

"Oh," Eggsy says in despair as he realises. "Oh _fuck_."

"Are you _actually serious_?" She starts rolling her sweaty towel up to flick at his leg and Eggsy hurries out of reach even though he probably deserves it, really, for being such an enormous dickhead. "Three weeks you've been boring me to death waiting for a text from someone who doesn't even have your number."

"I dunno, I just assumed I did! It felt like a date, I woulda gave my number if I was—"

"It was a ten-minute car journey with a fan, Eggsy. Which, by the way, is the sort of story you see under ghastly headlines, so don't make a habit of it."

"Fifteen minutes," he mutters sulkily, because it's the only part of it he can argue with. "When you put it like _that_..."

Two days later, Roxy turns up to morning class wearing the clothes she'd had on leaving rehearsals the night before and the sort of expression that says _I know a thing you don't know and I'm going to ruin your day with my face until either you guess or I take pity on you, both of which might be never_. Eggsy narrows his eyes at her and says nothing, determined not to bite this time.

He manages twenty-three minutes, which is a personal best.

"Alright, what?" he whispers. Roxy, working at the opposite side of the barre, slides him a quick sideways glance and says nothing, but her smirk widens a fraction and it makes Eggsy sigh loudly enough that he gets shushed by the master and feels eleven years old. _You're dead_ , he mouths at her, while she rearranges her face into something calculatedly innocent and gives him the middle finger as she's raising her arm from second to fifth.

Like that's not bad enough, he moves to the other side of the room to get away from her intolerable self-satisfaction for the centre exercises and accidentally ends up standing right next to Charlie.

"Don't you fuckin' start," Eggsy mutters as he's unzipping his sweaty jacket and flinging it on the floor in a sulk. He can see Charlie's reflection in the huge mirror, lip curled in a sneer, and can't decide whether this is better or worse than putting up with Roxy dangling a secret over his head.

"You look like Ziggy Stardust's auntie. Those leggings are fucking atrocious."

"Yeah, so was your mum's technique when she tried to take 'em off with her teeth the other night."

"I fucking hate you," Charlie whispers right behind him, far closer than he should be; it makes a disgusting little shiver roll down Eggsy's spine and right along his arms to his tingling fingertips.

"But you don't hate fucking me, so joke's on you, ain't it?"

That sends Charlie into a murderous silence for the rest of the class, and also makes him go really really fucking competitive, which is nice: something to focus on and aim for, and Eggsy's glad for the distraction. By the time they get to the grand allegro fun stuff, both stripped down to short tights now and gleaming with sweat, he's forgotten Roxy altogether and – miraculously – hasn't thought about Harry in thirty whole minutes, although realising his absence is the same thing as thinking about him, really. That's a bit fucking irritating. _Fuck you, flower guy_ , Eggsy thinks viciously as he's spinning en manège around the studio and throwing everything he's got into doing it higher and better than Charlie.

"You were shit," he says after, grudgingly offering his hand while everyone buzzes around the edges of the room for their water bottles and discarded clothing, and Charlie, just as grudgingly, shakes it.

"You were worse."

"Fuck off. See you later, yeah?"

"Not if you get hit by a bus."

"Fuck you," Eggsy calls back over his shoulder, slinging his arm round Roxy's waist when she comes over with his bag and pressing a slimy sweaty kiss on her cheek. "Lunch?"

"Alright."

"Gonna tell me your secret?"

"Alright," she says again, "if I get one in return."

"Tell you about Charlie's dick if you like."

"No thanks, I already know what a short unsatisfying story _that_ is." She's fumbling in her hoodie pocket for something. "I went to the florist after rehearsal yesterday."

"Right," Eggsy says cautiously, sensing there's more to it than just that. "What for? You get flowers every show."

"Yes, and _so do you_." She finds whatever she's searching for and slaps it into Eggsy's hand. "For god's sake, use your brain. It took me twenty seconds on google to find where the shop is, five minutes to sweet talk the florist into coming for a drink with me, then another half a minute while she was fetching her bag to look up the details of one Harry Hart and his standing order for 'best roses to the Royal Opera House on the nights Gary Covington performs'. By the way, those bouquets he sends with the Dom Pérignon? Three hundred and ninety-five pounds apiece. Keep him."

He only half-hears the words; he's too distracted by Roxy's looping biro scrawl on the back of the florist's card. Mr H. Hart, c/o Kingsman Tailors, 11 Savile Row.

"Shit. Holy fuck, Rox, what do I do?"

"Thank me first."

"Thank you, Roxy."

"Do all my share of the bathroom cleaning for the next month."

"Eh... alright, whatever, fucking hell."

"Make an appointment for a lovely new suit."

" _No_ ," he says immediately, because the idea alone is enough to make him feel like he's about to simultaneously jizz in his pants and die of a heart attack, but Roxy tells him, " _Yes_ ," and he doesn't dare argue any more with a woman who can rehearse six hours on pointe and still go out on a double pulling/espionage mission like James Bond with bigger balls.

* * *

It's two days before he thinks he feels brave enough to go, but he chickens out at the last minute and runs off to hide in a back corner of the gym instead, where hopefully Roxy won't find him and yell at him for being a baby. After five more days of her pinballing between gentle encouragement and vicious taunting (and Charlie occasionally offering him a charity handie to take his mind off things, but doing it in the most rancorous way possible and more often than not wording it as _take your mind off your grandad_ which kind of kills the mood), Eggsy ends up jogging through Leicester Square and Regent Street with his headphones plugged in his ears blaring Rudimental just for a bit of peace from it all.

 _Bit underdressed_ , he realises with dismay when he's standing in front of the Kingsman window, staring in at the display jackets that must cost as much as his parents' house – but if Roxy finds out he got this far and didn't go in then it's probably not worth going home at all, and she _will_ find out, even if he doesn't say a word, because she's some fucked-up kind of psychic.

His first impression of the shop when he goes inside is _There are antlers on the ceiling. What kind of fucking place puts antlers on a ceiling?_ His second is _Holy fucking shit, no wonder the prick can afford four hundred quid presents_. Everything's deep green and leather and brass and gleaming polished wood, like being in a National Trust place on a school trip where you have to stay behind the ropes and read the guide book instead of being allowed within five feet of anything.

"Good afternoon, sir," the old guy behind the counter says politely, as if sweaty plebs in Jeremy Scott jackets come in the shop all the time. "How may I be of assistance?"

Eggsy's idiot brain panics, and his idiot mouth goes along for the ride. "I'm looking for Harry," he says, as uncontrollable and wretched as vomit, then adds, "Harry Hart?" when the man just blinks at him as if that's the last thing in the world he expected to hear. "Someone told me he worked here. It's alright, if he ain't around I'll just... well, yeah, never mind. Sorry I bothered you, yeah, I best be off anyway." _Oh my god PRICK_.

He's just turning to go when the man comes alive again like someone's just put a coin in him at the fairground. "If you'd like to take a seat, sir, I'll do my best to find someone who can help you," he says smoothly, picking up the handset of the old rotary phone on the counter and dialling.

Eggsy looks at the seating choices, considers the disgusting state of his arse after a morning of rehearsals and no shower, and decides not to sit. He wanders round awkwardly looking at the pictures on the walls and the folded displays of fabric instead, half-listening to the counter guy's side of the conversation – _Sir, there's a gentleman here who'd like to speak to Mr Hart – Yes, sir – Very good, sir_ – and cursing himself and Harry and Roxy and Roxy's florist hook-up and pretty much every person he can think of in the world just in case some kind of butterfly effect means a sneeze they did in 1998 had something to do with creating this situation, however small.

Then he hears quiet footsteps behind him, and an amused Scottish voice saying, "Good afternoon, Mr Covington. I've been expecting you."

 _Seriously_ , Eggsy yells in his head as he turns and comes face to face with a tall handsome bald guy holding a clipboard and a mug of tea, _my life needs to stop being a Bond film r i g h t  n o w_.

"That's funny, cos I ain't got no clue who _you_ are."

"I'm Harry's boss."

There's a quiet muffled snort of derision from behind the counter; Eggsy wonders whether that guy's related to Roxy, or maybe posh people like them learn this sort of thing in prep school.

"Well. Is he here, then?"

"I'm afraid he's out of the country on business. Would you like me to give him a message?"

"Yeah. Alright." He starts patting his pockets down for some reason, even though he knows full well he hasn't got anything to write with. "Can I borrow a pen and paper?" Baldy produces them from somewhere like he's a magician and Eggsy finally takes the offered seat, leaning the folded paper on his thigh so he can write, clumsy and scribbling half the words out before he's got something he can bear to leave.

_Hey Harry_

_I thought I gave you my number but I didn't so I'm gonna write it here. Please ring it. I mean if you want to. Don't do it to be polite or nothing cos fuck that, do it cos you want to. If you don't want then thats alright, have a nice life. Thanks for the roses, got to admit I aint got much experience getting treated like a princess lol so it's all a bit new and weird for me but like nice weird. Roxy tracked you down for me (she aint a stalker I swear just she don't know how to not get what she wants so she thinks everyone else should too) (did that make grammar sense?? anyway) We're (me Roxy Charlie H) working on Ashton Monotones 2 now for this charity gala thing next week, I came round to ask if you want to be my plus one to the party so if your back off your trip let me know. Suppose I don't need to tell you to wear a nice suit hey._

_Anyway there's my number. Safe travels yeah._

_Eggsy_

He barely takes the time to nod a goodbye before he's out the door and pelting back towards Covent Garden at full speed, like he's ever going to be fast enough to outrun his own monumental drama. He tries on the way to figure out how to spin the telling of the story so he sounds a lot cooler than he actually was, but it's probably not going to be worth the effort and Roxy won't hear him talking over the sound of her own delighted cackling anyway.

* * *

"Sorry about that, Galahad. Something came up in the shop."

"No change here," Harry says grumpily, trying to stretch his long legs out in the footwell of the car to ease the cramp after several hours of sitting still. "Do you realise what a tremendous waste of resources it is, putting me on surveillance missions? What did I do wrong this time?"

"I suspect someone let slip to Arthur that you've got your eye on a dead recruit's son."

"Next time you see James, tell him I'm going to kill him."

"Will do."

He sounds far too cheerful. That's suspicious. Harry reaches up to tilt the rear-view mirror to a better angle, glaring stonily at his own reflection. "Merlin."

"Galahad?"

"May I ask why you're in such a good mood? Ten minutes ago you were complaining about your cat's projectile diarrhoea."

"I'll tell you when you get back," Merlin says with an infuriating tinge of glee in his voice.

Harry groans and lets his head clunk back against the seat. It's going to be a very, very long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short clips from Monotones II: [in rehearsal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIcpyTGB1tI) and [performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQeJjno6Y2I).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Texts and phonecalls to fill up the 800 miles of air between Milan and London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lifted some dialogue verbatim from the film. You'll know it. Not mine!

Good evening, Eggsy.

           _Whose this??_

Harry Hart. You left your number with a man who claimed to be my boss.

           _Lmao who is he then if he ain't ur boss??_

A terrible horrible no good very bad friend.

           _Yeah I got one of them an all Roxy basically held me at gunpoint to get me to ur shop  
          I mean not like I didn't want to come anyway  
          Ffs  
          Sorry can I start again  
          Hi Harry :)_

Hello :)

           _Never expected ur the type of guy to use smileys lol_

It seemed appropriate to reciprocate, since you started.  
Please don't start using those yellow cartoon faces.

           _Oi I'll have u know I can have a whole conversation in emojis without typing words  
          It's a skill  
          U still there? :/_

Yes.  
My apologies. I was trying to think of a reply.

           _Haha ok  
          U don't have to try  
          Are u trying to impress me ;)_

I'd be doing a lousy job of it if I were.

           _Na bruv still replying ain't I  
          Ur doing ok  
          Hello??  
          Harry stop trying to impress me just talk to me_

Ok.

           _Tumbleweeds lmao  
          Do u want me to start_

Start what?

           _A conversation_

By all means, if you'd like to.

           _How about I ask u a question then u ask me_

This sounds suspiciously like truth or dare.

           _I dare u to tell the truth_

Challenge accepted, within reason.

           _Ok  
          Hang on I'm thinking  
          Ok  
          Is ur name Henry or like Harold or something  
          Harrison  
          Harvey  
          Can't think of no more  
          I mean I got a mate called Harpreet but I'm guessing it ain't that_

That is not what I expected you to say.

           _Oh yeah ;) what was u expecting me to say then ;)_

Henry Robert Hart. Why do you ask?

           _Lol avoid the question then  
          I dunno I just like people's names  
          Like I like u can choose ur own  
          Be who u wanna be an all that  
          Lmfao I just realised ur initials say HRH  
          Rox telling me to make a joke about getting invited to fuckingham palace  
          But I won't_

Well.  
If you want to make that joke I shan't stop you.

           _Ok then  
          U ready_

I don't suppose I shall ever be ready for anything you say.  
But let's pretend yes.

           _Alright here goes  
          Actually no it's a shit joke innit_

It's not a great one.

           _What's ur favourite joke_

Have you heard the one about the magic tractor that drove down a lane and turned into a field?

           _Nope_

Eggsy, that was the joke.

           _How the fuck was that a joke_

It's a tractor. It turned into a field.  
It's a magic tractor. It TURNED INTO a field.

           _Oh yeah I get it  
          Lmfao that's fucking horrendous  
          10 points from Gryffindor  
          U should be ashamed of urself_

I am frequently ashamed of myself, particularly concerning you.

           _Oh ok  
          Don't feel like we're joking no more_

Perhaps not.  
Thank you very much for the invitation.

           _Yeah it's cool  
          Can u come?  
          Would love it if u did :)_

Please know I would very much like to.  
But I'm afraid there's something I should like to discuss first.

           _Wow ok that sounds ominous  
          Did u kill someone  
          Harry come on reply I was kidding  
          As if u ever hurt anyone in ur life lmao  
          U ever stick a tailor pin in someone's nob by accident  
          ?_

Not by accident.

           _Haha  
          No seriously what's up_

It's somewhat delicate.  
I'm not sure Whatsapp is quite the best place for this discussion.

           _Ummm ok  
          U wanna come over  
          U know where I live  
          Tbh ur freaking me out a bit_

I'm in Milan for work.  
May I call you?

           _Yeah ok  
          Hang on I'm going for a walk  
          Rox n Charlie staring at me like we're on Eastenders  
          No privacy in this fuckin house I swear to god  
          Gimme 5 mins I'm going to the park_

* * *

It's late enough that even the local tweenage yobs have given up and gone home. The streets are empty, almost eerily still, and Eggsy speeds up a bit as he's walking past the graveyard, glad there's nobody around to see. Nobody but JB, anyway, and he's waddling as fast as he can himself so they're in it together. He's got his hand clamped around his phone in his pocket, irrationally nervous that it's going to ring somehow without him realising even though he's got the vibration setting on 'dynamite'.

He answers about 0.2 seconds after he feels it buzzing against his fingers, because he's got no chill.

"Hey Harry." Is there any fucking need to sound this breathless? He pulls a twisted face and picks a bench at the side of the grass so he doesn't have to walk and talk at the same time, not that sitting down seems to be doing anything to help his heartrate now he's got that beautiful espresso-rich voice purring in his ear all the way from fucking Milan.

"Good evening," Harry says quietly, and Eggsy is _done_ with being upright; he swings his feet up onto the bench and lies there flat on his back, knees pointing to the sky and the invisible stars hidden in the ambient glow of the city.

"So what's the matter, then? Did you actually kill someone? Are you on the run? You need me to bring you a change of clothes and some hair dye?"

"May I start at the beginning?" Harry asks, and Eggsy shuts his mouth hard. There's a horrible bubbling boiling sort of trepidation in his stomach, not helped by JB scrambling up from his place by Eggsy's trainers and settling heavily right across his middle.

"Yeah. I'm listening."

"The very condensed version is that many years ago, I knew your father."

"Come again?" Eggsy asks in the polite voice he uses when someone interviewing him is being a bit of a dickhead and he's trying to buy enough time to figure out a reply. Harry's gone quiet again on the other end of the line – Eggsy takes the phone away from his ear to make sure the line's not disconnected itself – then very slowly, very softly, he sighs, and Eggsy follows involuntarily like an echo, like sympathy pains, some kind of psychic link stretched taut across half of Europe and straining between them.

"I've been coming to see you perform all this time and had no idea until recently."

"Yeah. I mean." Eggsy's got to fight the sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh. "I still got Unwin for my middle name but my stepdad's been there since I was eight, you get me? He's a good bloke. Just felt right, having one surname for one family."

"Of course," Harry murmurs, and then there's silence on the line for a while, just the sound of him breathing in Italy. Eggsy finds his own chest moving in unison and the realisation makes him falter, tripping over his own oxygen until he's taking in air when Harry's breathing out, exhaling shakily when Harry's breathing in, interlaced like fingers in a pair of holding hands.

"So how'd you know him?" he asks, partly because he's truly curious but mostly just to shove some sound into the silence. "I can't remember him too well but don't seem like you woulda moved in the same circles that much, you know?"

"We worked together for a while."

"At the tailors?" All the pictures he's got of his dad are of a grinning scruffy young lad with horrible taste in tracksuits, or scrubbed up neat as a button in his uniform; can't really see him going for all those pinstripes and fucking antlers somehow.

"Your father saved my life."

Oh. So _that_ struck a blow he wasn't expecting, shocking a wave of goosebumps hard through his guts and down all his limbs.

"So before you was a tailor," Eggsy asks slowly, "was you in the army? Like an officer?"

"Not quite."

"So where was you posted, Iraq or something?"

"Sorry, Eggsy, classified." Harry sounds like he's smiling now. He's definitely showing off, he knows exactly where to push. He'll be getting a text with five hundred heart eyes emoji faces if he keeps on.

"But..." Go back to _that bit_. He can't believe he's never heard this story before, but if it really is classified then nobody has. That's weirdly upsetting, like it's making a secret of something that should have got a—

Oh. Right.

A medal.

He finds it under his t-shirt, crooking his fingertip under the chain and drawing it up out of his collar. He hardly thinks of it at all any more, it's just a constant presence against his chest any time he's not on stage or rehearsing – the first thing he puts on in the morning after showering, even before his underwear.

"My dad saved your life, yeah?" he prompts, tilting the medal back and forth so the orangey glow of the nearby streetlight glints off the gaudy gold. Ugly thing, really, but he'd been so proud of it as a kid, and of everything it stood for, that he'd ended up in fights with boys at school who took the piss.

"The day your father died, I missed something. If it weren't for his courage, my mistake would have cost the lives of every man present. So I owe him. Your father was a brave man, a good man, and I think he'd be tremendously proud of the choices you've made."

After an agonising half-minute struggle, Eggsy says, "Harry, I'm crying in the park, so fuck you."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh god, no! Not like, fuck you, murderer. Shit happens, I know that, he musta known it too. Just, don't say nice things to me, I'm exhausted from practice and I'm feeling fucking delicate, alright?" JB attempts to help by wriggling his bulky little body up and appearing suddenly in front of Eggsy's face, peering down at him with his head cocked then leaning in to lick snuffly dog-meat-scented kisses under his eyes. "JB, fuck off, Jesus fuck you got your tongue in my mouth—"

"Am I interrupting some sort of romantic tryst?"

" _No_ ," Eggsy insists, half-laughing, pushing JB back down and swiping at his wet face with a sleeve curled over his fist. "So is that why you wouldn't come in that time, you thought my dead dad wouldn't approve?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Now hang on a minute, I'll tell you and him the same thing I told my mum and stepdad, yeah? If I like someone and they like me there ain't a herd of wild horses big enough to stop me climbing on board."

"Eggsy." He sounds perturbed. "I'm not a bus."

"Shut up, you know what I mean."

"Well, I— shit, please excuse me, something's come up and I must dash."

"...Harry, was that a fucking _gunshot_?"

"Of course not, just a backfiring car."

"Right," Eggsy says, eyes narrowed and mind whirling. Gunshots? Noble courageous deaths? A _tailor_? Not fucking likely. "Well, invite still stands if you wanna tag along to that swanky bash when you're back, yeah?"

"Yes, sounds marvellous." Awful lot of backfiring cars in Milan tonight. Funny. "I'll say goodnight, then."

"Yeah. Night, Harry. Please don't get shot in the head, yeah?"

But Harry's already gone, and the only sound in the park is JB's snuffly breathing.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's not sure where he stands, really, on public displays of affection, or whether it's common knowledge that Eggsy's asked him along as his guest – but there's something magnificent in Eggsy's eyes, a kind of _yearning_ that Harry still can't quite congratulate himself about because he's not entirely sure this is actually happening in the real world and not just another one of those stupid dreams that start out as something swooping and old-Hollywood romantic before plummeting rapidly into sordid pornography. He reaches for Eggsy's hand and waits for an objection; when there's no reaction except a broadening smirk and another few millimetres of eyebrow, he brings it to his mouth and presses a kiss above his knuckles. It's like the ones he couldn't resist in the car, but better this time, softer and longer, holding Eggsy's gaze the whole time as if to say silently, in front of the world, _something extraordinary is happening, do you feel it too?_

"How do I look?" Harry asks, feeling stupidly nervous as if it's his wedding day and not quite trusting the over-critical filter he seems to have on his glasses.

Merlin looks over Harry's shoulder at their reflections in the dressing room mirror, reaching up to brush a speck of lint off the arm of his new tailcoat and considering him in silence for at least a full minute, as though he's doing some kind of forensic scan for loose threads or stray bobbles – which, knowing Merlin and his tendency to fit his own glasses with all sorts of prototypes long before anybody else even knows he's working on them, could very well be the case. "Hideous," he concludes at last. "Get out of here, you're offending my eyes."

It's the first thing that makes Harry crack a smile in hours, anxiety – just slightly – starting to dim. He sees an answering one glimmer warmly for a moment in Merlin's eyes before he collects his ever-present clipboard from the side table and steps around Harry to press his palm against the mirror.

"One more thing," Merlin says just before the lift starts to descend.

Harry glances up from adjusting his cufflinks. "Yes?"

"If this goes to plan, _please_ for the love of god make sure your glasses are off so you don't traumatise my night staff."

* * *

It's not the sort of gala event Harry ever attends except occasionally under an alias if a mission calls for it, so it feels familiar and disconcertingly new at the same time to step out of his car and onto the red carpet. There are jostling rows of photographers trying to get snaps of celebrities in white tie and evening gowns, fans yelling names and brandishing clumsily-painted banners, reporters and cameramen who stare intently at him for a horrifyingly long moment before they're satisfied enough that he's nobody important and move on to the next prey. He curls in on himself a bit after that – it's not physical, but a sort of mental effort he's managed to hone over his years in Kingsman, this spectacular talent to be dressed to the nines and yet still blend chameleon-like into the background any time he needs to be ignored. It makes it easy, suddenly, to see Eggsy and his friends; it's like there's a spotlight on him, even though there's not, drawing Harry's attention right down the long red row of people showing off so his gaze stops dead at the three dancers. They're standing with the company director and some television presenter in a vulgar purple velvet jacket, Charlie looking as tall and Michelangelo-handsome as always in his flawlessly fitted tails, Roxanne in midnight blue and enough diamonds to sink a ship, and Eggsy – well. Harry's beginning to regret the Dutch courage he allowed himself in the cab, because now his mouth feels too dry to talk and his head is whirling like a spinning top.

Eggsy sees him when he's still only halfway there, eyes finding Harry's like magnets through the crowd, and his smile notches wider, bright and delighted and devastating as he fumbles his answer to whatever he'd been asked. Harry lurks back so they can finish their interview – and it's an excuse to _look_ , drink him in as though the sight of him is going to be enough to ease Harry's parched mouth and not just make it worse. Harry's never seen him like this before, immaculate tails and waistcoat, neat white bow tie, black ribboned pumps as glossy as mirrors; he's always been in costume, or those horrendous street clothes he wore the night after Manon, that awful favourite jacket of his with the yellow shit all over and, half-hidden under a cap, his hair gone crunchy with dried sweat. Not like now, perfectly parted and combed, glowing gold under the constellations of fairy lights strung overhead – he looks up again, then, catching Harry's eye for what feels like the dozenth time in two minutes and glancing quickly down, looking demurely at the carpet but giving something away in the dimples he can't hide at the sides of his smile.

"Stealing every fucker's thunder," is the first thing he says when he escapes and comes over to Harry, "and you ain't even famous. They're gonna be pissed."

"Nonsense. Nobody's looking at _me_."

Eggsy ducks his head, dimpled grin creasing his face again before he makes an obvious effort to pull himself together, stand up straight, look Harry dead in the eye with only the slightest raise to one pointed eyebrow giving anything of his feelings away. "Well, ain't you gonna say hello?"

Harry's not sure where he stands, really, on public displays of affection, or whether it's common knowledge that Eggsy's asked him along as his guest – but there's something magnificent in Eggsy's eyes, a kind of _yearning_ that Harry still can't quite congratulate himself about because he's not entirely sure this is actually happening in the real world and not just another one of those stupid dreams that start out as something swooping and old-Hollywood romantic before plummeting rapidly into sordid pornography. He reaches for Eggsy's hand and waits for an objection; when there's no reaction except a broadening smirk and another few millimetres of eyebrow, he brings it to his mouth and presses a kiss above his knuckles. It's like the ones he couldn't resist in the car, but better this time, softer and longer, holding Eggsy's gaze the whole time as if to say silently, in front of the world, _something extraordinary is happening, do you feel it too?_

Eggsy laughs, hushed and breathless, fingers tightening briefly around Harry's before they finally release each other. "Well, yeah, that's even better. You fucking smooth bastard. Thanks for sending the flower."

"I'm sorry it's not a rose."

"I ain't sorry." He glances down at his boutonniere, the satin-white petals of a tiny perfect gardenia. "Wouldn't be proper. Your bald boss said it had to be carnation or this else you're not doing it right."

"My bald boss," Harry echoes stupidly, then has to fight the urge to groan. Merlin is a dead man walking. "Is this a Kingsman suit?"

"Yeah. Made the appointment hoping it'd be you down there with the measuring tape—" The expression on his face turns wicked, glinting eyes and a teasing sort of sideways smile "—you know, on your knees. Feeling me up. But he said you was in Tokyo. Do a lot of international travelling for a London tailor, don't ya?"

"Eggsy, my job is terribly boring. I'd rather talk about yours."

"Yeah, I bet you would," he murmurs, taking Harry's offered arm to go inside.

The theme of the night is 'constant fear of cardiac arrest'. Harry mingles as he was trained to do at boring society parties from childhood, making polite conversation with several dull strangers, sipping martinis of varying degrees of success, once being whirled into a waltz on the dance floor by Roxanne who takes the chance to deliver a ferocious whispered warning into his ear about how it's in his best interests to be kind to her best friend and not fool him about. Eggsy's being rushed all over the place by the company director, presumably to flirt donations out of rich patrons – but he's constantly _there_ in Harry's sightline, twisting his face into theatrical grimaces of boredom when he thinks he can get away with not being seen by anyone else, or flashing quick smiles of such cataclysmic loveliness whenever he senses Harry's eyes on him that it's almost impossible to look away. He vanishes for a while and reappears on stage with Roxanne and Charlie for their performance, and Harry switches his glasses back on for it because if anything's going to stop Merlin making fun it's a live demonstration: gleaming white costumes, blueish spotlights, an almost abstract minimalism to the way their limbs curve and entwine. It's dance for the sake of dance, no story or characters, simply movement in defiance of gravity flowing hypnotically against the dark backdrop until there seems to be nothing left in the room but the shapes they make and Harry's thudding heart, and the quiet sounds of an occasional unimpressed sigh in his earpiece.

"You see?" Harry murmurs after, four minutes into riotous applause that feels like it might be endless.

"Yes, he's very bendy, I'm very pleased for you."

"You have no appreciation for art. None at all. Goodnight, Merlin."

When Eggsy returns to their table he's still flushed, grinning, eyes bright like he's high on something more than the rush of performance. He hooks his chair out with his foot and drags it closer so that when he sits it's with his knees casually splayed, one of Harry's slotted in between them in a way that makes all the gin in his stomach churn like river rapids.

"Tell me I'm brilliant," he demands, reaching for Harry's glass and throwing the last of the martini back like it's a tequila shot.

"You're brilliant."

The olive is next, trapped between white teeth, slowly slid off the cocktail stick and sucked in between his gin-wet lips. "Say it like you mean it."

"Eggsy." Harry reaches out for him; he can't help himself, and it doesn't seem like Eggsy minds from the way he instantly nudges the sharp line of his jaw into Harry's palm. His skin is soft, slightly oily with something, the dregs of makeup or the cream he used to remove it, and Harry can feel the prickle of stubble there against the heel of his hand and the pad of his thumb. Eggsy looks more alert suddenly, eyes wider, smile vanished, _waiting_ and hungry. "You're magnificent."

"Bet you say that to all the ballet boys, hey." His voice falters halfway through, half-choked when Harry's left hand finds its way to the other side of his face. There's an ungainly clatter and jerk as Eggsy shifts his chair closer still, one of his knees now resting against the inside of Harry's thigh. "Harry. You gonna come home with me later, yeah?"

They're tucked in a corner, half-hidden behind a column and a decorative tree, and the room is darker now except for the neon spin of the disco lights as the DJ entices people back onto the floor; it's not private, but it feels close enough that Harry doesn't hesitate to banish the final few inches between them and touch his lips to Eggsy's jaw. "Absolutely not," he murmurs against Eggsy's ear, soothing the instant protest with another lingering kiss to the warm stubbled skin. "Miss Morton has threatened me with all sorts of horrors if I don't treat you well enough, and while I have absolutely no intention of not treating you well, I'd rather not have her staring at me over breakfast like a bloody judge and jury." Eggsy laughs, quiet and low in his throat, muttering _fucking hell, Rox_ , and tilts his head under Harry's brushing mouth. "You'll come home with me," Harry says quietly there against his raging pulse, feeling Eggsy's trembling fingers on his collar and the hot gasp of his breath escaping between them when he answers, murmured and shaking, _YES, Harry_.

Of course things go wrong then, because Harry's life is a fucking shitshow sometimes.

"Gentlemen," Roxanne says brightly, appearing from god knows where like a bloody house elf, "sorry to interrupt but you have to come and meet Mr Valentine, Eggs."

"Fuck Mr Valentine," Eggsy snarls, smashing his face defiantly into the side of Harry's neck until Roxanne rolls her eyes and grips him by the earlobe, pulling him protesting to his feet. "Fucksake! Be right back, yeah?"

Harry watches him go, trying to calm his thudding heart and burning face with a glass of ice water since Eggsy stole the last of his martini – and then he sees her, standing there beside Eggsy and Roxanne and the man their director's called them over to talk to, blunt black fringe and shining silver blades extending from her knees to the ground.

"Merlin," he says, touching his glasses back to life.

"For the last time, I don't care."

" _Look_." He zooms in on the woman from Argentina, and hears Merlin's sudden sharp intake of breath and then the rapid tapping of computer keys.

"Alright, Galahad, I'm sending someone to bring her in. Need an extraction team or can you get out yourself?"

"I'll do it, I'm here."

"For fuck's sake, I'm trying to save your romantic night. Last time I ever do you a favour, ingrate."

"I—" Harry stops short, suddenly bewildered. "Well. That's uncharacteristically thoughtful of you."

"Percival's en route, ETA thirteen minutes. See if you can leave while she's distracted. If she recognises you she'll bolt again, or worse."

His senses all feel on high alert, turned up to eleven, watching her between the leaves of the plant as she runs her eyes over the three dancers and then away, disinterested, sweeping her gaze across the crowd instead. She doesn't stop looking, although her body is statue-still, taking in everything around her with quick little movements like a bird.

"Whose bodyguard is she?" Merlin asks.

"A Mr Valentine."

Merlin taps some more, swears savagely under his breath a few times, then sighs a long, slow breath out. "Alright, that's just made it all more interesting. I need to check on some things, but be at the shop for a briefing at nine tomorrow. Don't be late."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Harry says, softly scandalised. "Send my car around to the back, would you?" He takes cover behind a couple of men collecting empty glasses, moving smoothly towards a side door and out into a cool corridor while the woman's looking the other way. It's startlingly bright after the darkness of the main room, harsh fluorescent lights overhead making him squint. Patches of sky are visible through the row of windows, deep blue fading into flaming pink and orange with the last of the sunset. Still so early, far too early for Eggsy to leave politely. So much for saving his romantic night, he thinks ruefully as he's taking his phone out and tapping a string of texts.

_Deepest apologies, Eggsy. I saw somebody I'd rather avoid and didn't want there to be a scene._  
_I'm going to my car but please don't rush on my account. I'm perfectly happy to wait for you._  
_Or I can go home and send my car back for you later._  
_Or we can meet another time._  
_Good god, how desperate do I sound?_

"Pretty fuckin' desperate," Eggsy says right behind him, and it's only thirty years of training his absolute control over his instincts that stops Harry from whirling round and knocking him out with a dart or a punch to the head.

"Bloody hell," he snaps instead, slamming his hand over his lurching heart, "you move like a fucking cat burglar!"

"Yeah. I'm, you know, a ballet dancer. Thought you were going to the loo, I was gonna come and watch." He's doing that smile again, the one with the dimples, and Harry is so gone for him it's ridiculous. "If you wanna leave, though. Even better."

"Aren't you supposed to be chatting up sponsors?"

"Maybe I am," Eggsy says casually. He slips around Harry, nudging the outside door open with his hip and going through it backwards, both hands working on Harry's white bow tie to loosen the knot and then using the tails like reins to drag him closer. "I come home with you, you're so blinded by how fucking good I am in bed you sign your life savings over to the company."

Harry's arms go around his waist, as natural as breathing. "Sounds good to me."

(" _Glasses_ ," Merlin yells in Harry's ear.)

"Or maybe," Eggsy says softly, drawing Harry closer still until there's nothing between them but the thin matching layers of marcella and wool, going up on tiptoe to send the words floating on a breath right into Harry's ear, "I fucking hate these pimp parties and if I don't get out of here and into your bed in the next ten minutes I'm gonna lose it big time."

"Fifteen minutes to my house," Harry tells him, hands travelling south for his first glorious grope of Eggsy's backside, and Eggsy's breath comes out laughing and warm over Harry's cheek.

"Best get started in the car, then."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A car chase, some banging, a fist bump, and aftermath. Also Eggsy meets Mr Pickle and is less than impressed.

He's got serious plans to throw himself at Harry the second the door slams shut and rip at the neatness of his suit, maybe slide to his knees before the car's even reached the first corner and get right to work on sating this unholy hunger he's been feeling ever since the moment he saw Harry striding like a wet dream vision down the red carpet towards him. It's not that easy once they're in and moving. The driver seems way closer to them than he did that first night, and though he politely turned his eyes away after a quick glance to make sure they were ready to go he's still _there_.

Eggsy inches his hand across the seat between them instead, creeping one fingertip slowly over the bumps of Harry's knuckles and waiting to see whether Harry gives slightly less of a shit about decorum; Eggsy knows his limits, after all, he knows he probably wouldn't be able to resist given the most minuscule of pushes, and he's kind of hoping for the shove. There's a lingering stretch of several seconds where he can see his own struggle mirrored in Harry's eyes, in the flicker of his glances between the driver and Eggsy and the gentle stroking movements of Eggsy's fingers – then Harry blows out a frustrated sigh, composes himself, and settles for _lounging_ there against his side of the car with a ferocious sort of heat in his eyes and a promise on his mouth somewhere behind the faint touch of a smile.

"Fifteen minutes," Eggsy says, pained. Harry turns his hand over, letting Eggsy's wandering fingertip trace the lines on his palm. "Fifteen fucking _hours_."

"I have no doubt it'll be worth the wait," he says simply, and – alright, that was a definite look at Eggsy's cock. In that case, there's no stuffy etiquette rules that say Eggsy's not allowed to do a bit of lounging of his own: he lets his knees fall casually apart, the hand not touching Harry's resting high up on his own thigh like a neon sign saying _YES PLEASE_ above a huge pointing arrow.

"You do this a lot?" he asks, feeling suddenly dry in the mouth as he watches Harry refasten his bow tie with those gorgeous long beautiful fingers. He must know what he's doing, nobody can have that much flawless grace about them and not be self-aware. Eggsy's ready for the match, then. There are reasons he gets better reviews for certain romantic hero roles than Charlie, after all: he's fucking _good_ at making people want him. He's made it a thing to work on his natural insouciance and take it almost to the point of pastiche but never over it. He knows how to exaggerate a soft laziness in his eyes, a particular way to angle his smile—

He's not really surprised that it doesn't seem to be working the way it usually does. Harry's too fucking clever for his own good, he just looks thoroughly _charmed_ by the effort. It's a reaction. Maybe not the intended one, but a pretty good one nonetheless.

"Do what?"

Tie neatly back in place, he reaches for Eggsy's hand again and laces their fingers together, watching his face as if to make sure it's okay, as if there's literally _anything in the world_ that it wouldn't be ok for him to do right now.

"Pick up fit young blonds in your pimped-out car?"

Harry shrugs one shoulder, unashamed. "It's not uncommon. Do _you_ do this a lot?"

"What?"

"Pick up—" He makes a vague sort of hand gesture towards himself "—ridiculous old men with hearts in their eyes."

"Not uncommon." There's the quiet rumble of a laugh somewhere far back in Harry's throat, prickling a little rush of goosebumps up Eggsy's arms. "Well, you know, the handsome older guys. Not so much the hearts. Mostly they just wanna know shit like can I put my legs behind my head and suck myself off."

"Good lord," Harry murmurs, eyebrows flying up high. "Has everybody in this fucking country completely lost all sense of propriety?"

"Suppose you gotta kiss a fuckload of disgusting frogs til you find the magic one, hey."

Harry laughs at that, quiet; it's little more than a breath, but still it's enough to send something hot and wobbly through Eggsy's stomach, something like the lurching fright when you misjudge a step and think you're about to go rolling arse over tit right down a staircase but without the fear part. All the rest is there, the sudden shot of adrenaline and the desperate need to be holding on to something. Harry's hand isn't enough.

"I'm a magic frog?" Harry's gaze flickers down the length of his body again as Eggsy slides smoothly closer across the leather seat, then back to his face, lingering at his mouth for a long moment full of glorious promise before he makes it the last few inches to Eggsy's eyes.

"Something like that, yeah." Eggsy finally lets Harry's hand go, but only so he can run trembling fingers up his lapel to rest there at his collar, tapping nervously because he can't sit still. He glances at the driver again, finding him focused on the road but still only a few measly feet away. Bad enough when Roxy or Charlie bring people home and bang them in the rooms next door so the connecting walls shake, but when there's nothing but a transparent window and an open shutter between the action and an innocent bystander that's just unforgivably rude. Probably. It's getting harder to care, sliding his hand up the side of Harry's neck to cup the flawless close shave of his jaw and around to slip a few fingertips through the neatly cropped hair at the back of his head. It makes Harry sigh, a tiny shuddering hungry little sound, and when Eggsy drops his voice to the faintest of whispers and breathes against his ear, "Enchanted prince and all that bollocks," Harry's throat makes an audible click when he swallows, loud in the solid silence of the back of the car.

 _Fucking bingo_ , Eggsy thinks, feeling like there's got to be the stupidest grin on his stupid face but not caring enough to make it stop. He wants this so fucking bad he's almost in pain, but there's something immense and brilliant about knowing how much Harry's into it as well. It's like a dream or some kind of souped-up fairytale, like one of those unbelievable things they have to perform on stage with enough conviction that for two hours people truly believe in swan princesses and the dead waking up to dance until dawn in smoke machine mist. Harry's mouth finds his neck, touching a line of soft kisses across Eggsy's thundering pulse, and then the driver takes a corner a little bit faster than is probably safe and the tilting momentum presses Eggsy even closer against Harry's side so he has to steady himself with a flailing hand pressed flat against the front of Harry's shirt. Even through the stiffness of the marcella he can feel muscles there, tight and defined where most of the other fifty-something guys Eggsy's gone home with were lazy and unremarkable – and that's the shove he needed, that's the final flare in his blood that makes him think _fuck the driver, if I don't do this I'm gonna fucking explode_ and tip his face up to find Harry's.

But Harry sits up a little bit straighter, gentle hand resting at the side of Eggsy's neck to hold him back. He's frowning, and for a horrible jolting second Eggsy wonders how he managed to misread these signals before he realises it's not him being frowned at, it's the driver.

"Something wrong?" Harry asks as the car leaps another few mph faster.

"I'm afraid we're being followed, sir."

"Eggsy, get down." He obeys at once – it's not the sort of tone of voice you argue with – and kneels there breathless and confused on the floor of the cab. Not exactly what he had in mind when he envisioned almost this exact position. The fly of Harry's trousers looks suspiciously strained as well, which isn't helping.

"Harry, what the fuck's going on?"

"I'm not sure yet. Stay there, please." He's looking out of the window as they whip past some red traffic lights, fingers finding Eggsy and almost absent-mindedly stroking through his hair. _Really_ isn't helping, fucking hell. Eggsy can't help leaning into his touch, and Harry suddenly seems to realise what he's doing and stops, looking slightly sheepish. "Apologies."

"No fucking apologies, free rein."

"I shall bear that in mind for later, thank you. Merlin?" Eggsy's confused by the non-sequitur for a moment, wondering if that's the driver's name, but he doesn't respond and it looks like Harry's talking to himself. "Detouring down the Victoria Embankment, approaching Somerset House. Black Mercedes in pursuit, no plates, immediate backup required. No I'm not going to get out and _face them like a man_ , I have a guest."

"Harry, what the fuck?" Eggsy whispers, and feels those stroking fingers return to his hair.

"Put me through. Percival, is it her? Shit. Alright, go after her, I'll handle these fools myself."

They're flying like hell, weaving in and out of traffic, and it's disorienting being down on the floor. Eggsy's just about managing to get his bearings by recognising the things and buildings flashing briefly in the windows – Cleopatra's Needle, the fanned white lines of the Jubilee bridges, the golden illumination of the Houses of Parliament when they skid on screeching tyres around another corner to the blare of horns from the other cars they're cutting up – then there's a splintering noise somewhere overhead, a crystallised opaque patch suddenly marring the back windscreen, and he flinches against Harry's shins instinctively even though the glass hasn't broken.

"Eggsy," Harry says, glancing down at him then twisting back to look again at the attackers in the other car, "listen to me. You're quite safe, the car is bulletproof, so I'm going to need you to stay exactly where you are while I open this window and deal with the situation." Deal with the situation like it's a dropped plate or a wasp in the room, something annoying but simple to fix – not like being _chased through London_ by a madman with a gun.

"Yeah," he manages, shoving himself back into a corner where he's got a bit more stability as they race around countless bends in the road. Harry gives him a reassuring sort of smile – _HOW? How can he look so unconcerned?_ – and swipes at the panel beside the sloshing whisky bottle to reveal a double-barrelled handgun, barely seeming to look at the thing as he loads it and rolls the window down just enough to point it out as they're roaring around another corner. There's the cracking noise of two shots and a squeal of tyres from the car behind.

"Taking the next left into Smith Square, sir, if that's alright," the driver calls back. "Regrettably residential, but we can go in circles round St John's til you get the buggers."

"Thank you," Harry says calmly, and shoots again.

It's maddening not being able to see, although at least Eggsy can anticipate the turn of the car now they're looping round. He squashes back against the wall between them and the driver so Harry can slide past him to the other side of the seat for a better shot, but as he's taking aim again there's the sickening noise and lurch of a rear tyre being shot out and the driver struggles to keep the car under control, finally coming to a screaming stop in one widened corner of the square. Immediately, Harry snatches another gun from yet another hidden compartment and opens the door.

"Terribly sorry about all of this, Eggsy. Back in a moment."

"Yeah," Eggsy says faintly, "go ahead," but Harry's already gone charging at the car. Through the back windscreen, Eggsy sees him take something from an inside pocket and throw it – then seconds later there's a small explosion, fire blasting underneath the car ("I'm not sure that was entirely necessary," the driver mutters, watching in the rearview mirror), and three figures in black combat suits come bursting out the doors already shooting. Eggsy's got just enough time to think, horrified, _Harry's dead_ , before he starts fighting.

It's like he's been choreographed. He moves with quick, brutal force, dodging and blocking attacks, coming back hard with attacks of his own and none of them fail, every single one lands true: a splintering punch in the face, a whirling kick to someone's crotch, an elbow pistoned back hard into a stomach. The three of them look highly trained, like soldiers, but Harry is something otherworldly and magnificent fighting in his white tie and tails, an economical sort of elegance in all of his movements so not a single twitch of a muscle is wasted. The men are shooting but somehow nothing's having any kind of effect: maybe Harry's dodging bullets – _actually dodging bullets, how the fuck is that even possible_ – or maybe he really is some kind of superhuman. Whatever it is, it's a forty-second fight tops before he slams his heel into the last guy's head and lays him out flat in the middle of the road, then stands up straight, adjusts his waistcoat so it's correctly covering the top line of his trousers, and comes striding back towards Eggsy, silhouetted against the flaming car like some ridiculous action hero in a Hollywood blockbuster.

Eggsy gets out of the cab, never mind what he was told. It hardly seems to matter now when all three of them are dead or out flat.

"Harry," he says, marching over to meet him halfway, not quite sure whether he's angry or it's just manifesting as anger because his body doesn't know how to process whatever it is he's feeling. "What the _fuck_?"

He gets shot then.

The bullet slams into his stomach just above where the lower points of his waistcoat meet and he stumbles to one knee and then down, too shocked even to make a sound, just curling his body around the spreading pain. There's another round of shots, the nauseating gurgle of someone who doesn't have a throat any more trying to take a last breath, then Harry's down on the tarmac beside him trying to prise his hands away from his stomach.

"Let me see," he says gently. He's pale, desperate worry in his eyes, but his voice and hands are steady.

"Did I just fucking get shot?" Eggsy asks stupidly, wondering why he's not passed out or died yet – then Harry plucks something from the fabric of his waistcoat, a compressed little lump of metal, and holds it up for him to see.

"Kingsman suits, like its cars, are bulletproof."

"Well it's a fucking good thing I never went to Harrods then," Eggsy says fiercely, surging up on his knees to kiss him.

There's not even half a nanosecond of hesitation; Harry's hands return to Eggsy's face, thumbs sliding soft across his cheekbones, palms warm against his jaw, tilting his face and kissing him back with a fury that Eggsy's too breathless and exhilarated to return. Instead he just clings on, arms clasped tight around Harry's neck, opening to the kiss and letting Harry completely fucking take his mouth in a way nobody's ever really bothered before. It's terrible, really, clashing teeth and too much spit, but Harry's hands are trembling against his face and he feels his own trembling where they're sliding agitatedly through the back of Harry's hair, and nothing seems to matter except that it's happening, finally, and he's _not_ been shot, and even though it's sort of awful there's a staggering perfection in the way they fit together.

"I told you to stay down," Harry murmurs somewhere between the frantic barrage of kisses and Eggsy tells him, "Shut the fuck up, tailor," and goes back in for more. It's better now, they're figuring each other out, the twine of tongues and the perfect tilt of heads, and Eggsy's about to make some kind of desperate plea to get to a bed or at least the nearest semi-private surface when Harry pulls back with a murderous look on his face.

" _Yes_ , bloody hell, keep your knickers on, I'm turning them off now. One dead, two unconscious. Send clean-up. I'm going home."

"Who the fuck do you keep talking to?" Eggsy says, almost yells, then Harry clamps a hand around his bicep and pulls him back to the car to get away from the people who've started coming out of their houses and flats to nosy at all the commotion, removing his glasses with the other hand and dropping them in his pocket. "Harry—"

As the car takes off again Harry grabs Eggsy by the waist, hoisting him across to straddle his lap as though he weighs nothing and plunging his fingers back into Eggsy's hair to hold him steady for another kiss that's so ruthless it's almost an attack. _Yes_ comes out of Eggsy's nose in a desperate pleading little sigh instead of a word, and for the second time tonight he finds the tail ends of Harry's tie and yanks them loose, searching blindly for the studs to detach his collar and then south for the ones at the front of his shirt so he can slip a hand inside to cover Harry's drumming heart. It's an awkward position, the ceiling of the car isn't high enough for him to be sitting comfortably across someone's lap like this, but he makes it work because the alternative is stopping and that's just, no. He can feel Harry's cock underneath him, hard and heavy behind the fly of his trousers, and when he grinds down against it he gets Harry's hand pressing like a reflex against his own for an infuriatingly fleeting moment before Eggsy almost topples right off Harry's lap as the car takes a corner. Harry curls his arms around Eggsy's body then to hold him steady, hands fighting their way beneath the tails of his coat to find his arse and inch him impossibly closer.

"Might you both be more comfortable indoors, sir?" the driver asks politely after a while.

Eggsy comes up for air, looking around blankly while his brain does its limited best to catch up with reality, and realises the car's stopped at the end of a little cobbled street.

" _Fuck_ ," Harry mutters into Eggsy's mouth. "Yes, I expect you're right."

"8:45 tomorrow, sir?"

Harry tips his head back against the seat and groans, which Eggsy feels as a vibration under his lips when he can't resist pressing them against the exposed column of skin. "If you must."

"Goodnight, sir. Mr Covington."

"Goodnight, Christopher."

Somehow, despite the fairly hefty hard-on his suit is doing absolutely nothing to hide, Harry loses none of his poise as he's clambering out of the car. Eggsy feels like a prize idiot in comparison, stumbling and light-headed, following Harry to his door as the car backs away towards the main road. When they're inside, Harry drops his keys on side table then turns to look at Eggsy, cheeks stained a beautiful uncharacteristic sort of pink and his mouth still wet and red from twenty minutes of desperate kissing.

"I expect you've got a hell of a lot of questions," he says carefully.

"Number one," Eggsy shoots back, "where's your bedroom? Number two, why ain't we in it yet? Numbers three to five million can wait, I reckon, unless you wanna have a nice sit down and chat before you get your mouth on my cock."

"First door on the right at the top of the stairs," Harry says immediately, rushing the words so they blend into something barely comprehensible, and Eggsy turns and takes the stairs two at a time so that by the time Harry catches up and appears in the doorway he's already thrown himself onto the middle of the bed and stripped out of his tailcoat.

Harry folds his arms, leaning there against the doorframe. "That'll crease terribly if you don't hang it up."

"My pocket of fucks to give is running pretty low, I gotta be honest," Eggsy tells him, toeing off his stupid ribboned dress shoes so they land with twin _clunks_ on the floorboards.

"I daresay you'll find it brimming again when you have to go home tomorrow."

"I'm gonna go straight to class. Walk of shame feels even dirtier if you still got your knackered party clothes on." He goes still then with his hands on his bow tie, watching the lithe stretch of Harry's arms and back when he removes his own coat and hangs it in the wardrobe, then, shamelessly, his arse when he bends down to retrieve Eggsy's. Harry meets his gaze just as brazenly, a tiny smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth as he kicks off his own shoes. Then, with every step closer to the bed, he unfastens another remaining stud or cufflink so that by the time he gets there his shirt and waistcoat are draping loose around his torso, offering a tantalising glimpse of the tanned skin and dark hair below.

"I believe you mentioned something about your cock earlier. Please, remind me."

Eggsy feels a bit like his brain is going to start leaking out of his nose at the sound of Harry saying _cock_ in that accent with that look of promise on his face. "Something about your mouth on it, I think?"

"Something along those lines, yes." He drops swiftly to his knees on the sheepskin rug beside the bed, and it's a _spectacular_ angle to look at him from, it belongs in a fucking art gallery: the usual tidiness of his hair completely fucked up beyond rescue from Eggsy's hands, that lingering pink flush in his cheeks and on his mouth, the deftness in his fingers when he collects all the stud fastenings to Eggsy's shirt and waistcoat and drops them in a dish on the bedside table.

"Holy fuck," Eggsy mutters in a voice that's almost a petulant whine, "this fucking penguin suit I swear to god, it's like a fucking straitjacket, get it _off_ —"

"Shush," Harry says, looking as if he's trying not to laugh as he unfastens the tab of Eggsy's shirt from his waistband, unbuttons his braces, and _finally_ gets his trousers and pants off him in one quick motion. Eggsy's almost embarrassed by his cock, standing up all insistent and demanding as soon as it's freed and interrupting his view of Harry's face, but turns out it's a bit difficult to feel anything at all except a sort of unholy desperate desire at the unabashed _want_ in Harry's eyes. Eggsy props himself up on his elbows for a better view, watching how Harry's eyes linger on his cock even as he's turning his head to press a hot line of kisses to the inside of Eggsy's thigh. His fingers are like burning little brands on Eggsy's skin, resting there on his other knee then leaving a comet trail of goosebumps when they move, touching him fucking _everywhere_ except where he wants to be touched and then guiding Eggsy's leg so the back of his knee hooks over Harry's shoulder, sweating against his pristine shirt. He can feel Harry's hair catching in the fastenings of his sock garter, then just as he's about to ask whether it's hurting he can't feel anything in the world except the sudden sucking warmth of Harry's mouth closing tight around the head of his cock.

"Hang on," Eggsy says. Harry looks up with a question in his eyes and his mouth stretched full, and Eggsy wishes to _fuck_ he had a camera right now. "No, don't stop, just—" He pushes down against the mattress with his elbows, sitting up, and – as if the immediately improved view wasn't enough – the motion crams his cock another couple of inches into the heat of Harry's mouth and makes them both spill ragged little moans. "I wanna watch."

Harry grins around him, apparently pleased with the idea of an audience – of course he'd be a fucking show-off in bed – then prompted by the hand sliding back into his hair he starts to move and nothing in Eggsy's entire life has ever been as fucking _good_ as the rough velvet slide of this tongue and the gleam in these brown eyes.

Then Harry finds Eggsy's other hand and guides it behind his head, shoving Eggsy's trembling fingertips into his mess of hair beside his other hand and _pressing_. "Oh," Eggsy says stupidly, "alright, yeah," and shuffles awkwardly to the very edge of the mattress, reluctantly letting his leg slip down off Harry's shoulder but not regretting it, really, with the new leverage it gives him to stuff his cock even farther into Harry's mouth. He clenches his fingers around strands of hair greasy with sweat and product and lifts Harry's head off him, shoves him back down, finds a pace that makes his toes curl in his ridiculous silk socks and makes Harry's mouth vibrate in quiet moans of pleasure and encouragement around him. "This what you like?" he asks, easing farther into the role with every thrust and suck. "You want me to just fucking use you, yeah?" Harry's eyes flutter open, bright and viciously hungry as he lifts his gaze to Eggsy's and holds it there, raising one eyebrow slowly like a challenge. "Alright," Eggsy says softly, "hold your breath," and presses forward with his hips and with his hands at the same time, mouth dropping open to spill out swears to the ceiling as Harry shifts on his knees to a better position and takes Eggsy's cock down his throat almost to the hilt. Eggsy moves one hand out of Harry's hair, fingers tracing round the edge of his ear and the line of his jaw to rest there lightly against the bulge in his throat, and presses gently with a couple of fingertips just to see the reaction: Harry's silent, airways blocked so he can't even moan, but a shudder runs through him and he moves his tongue like a wave, tickling and gorgeous against the underside of Eggsy's cock until Eggsy releases him and his breath rushes out through his nose in a wobbly sigh of pleasure. "Very, very nice," Eggsy murmurs, stroking his fingertips across Harry's throat once more, feeling the pressure of the head of his cock when Harry sucks him deep again, and then the gentle slide of Harry's fingers on his hand, guiding him to press even harder. "Can you take any more?"

Harry taps _have you got any more_ against the back of his wrist in morse code, one eyebrow raised again teasingly, and Eggsy says, "You tell me, smartarse," and presses the last half inch of his cock in until Harry, wide eyed and marvelling, swallows hard around him with his nose touching Eggsy's skin below the rising bruise where the bullet smacked into his waistcoat.

"Well, you're full of surprises," Harry says hoarsely when Eggsy lets him up. Eggsy can feel the smile against his thigh when Harry starts kissing him there again, the shaking laughter in his shoulders when Eggsy's hands drops down from his hair. "I wasn't expecting you to get that."

"I was a very dedicated boy scout. I know semaphore as well if you got any flags you wanna start waving about the place."

" _Fuck_ ," Harry murmurs, fitting his mouth around Eggsy's cock again and staring up at him as he sucks with this look of blatant adoration in his eyes that's almost uncomfortable, just because it's so new. There's a way people look at him when they want something from him, the Grindr pervs and ballet fetishists and people from clubs who just want to shag whatever less than hideous younger guy they can get their hands on, but Harry's looking at him like the only thing he wants is to stay right here on his knees and worship him until the end of days, and that realisation sends an electric tingle flying up the length of Eggsy's spine to explode like a firework in his brain.

"Come here," he says, "get up here, right now," trying to drag Harry up onto the bed by his braces. A button pings off his trousers and rattles away god knows where across the floorboards, and Harry watches it go then blinks up at Eggsy, arranging his face into an annoyed expression that might be much more effective if there weren't laughter in his eyes.

"You're sewing that back on."

"Fuck you, _tailor_ , sew it back on yourself." He tugs again and Harry rises up on his knees, thankfully more because he wants to than to save his remaining buttons if the urgency of his kisses is anything to go by, and somehow like some sort of fucking brilliant magician he manages to get Eggsy's garters and socks off without looking or breaking the kiss. His own clothes are trickier, they have to part for him to struggle his shirt and waistcoat off, then Eggsy's fumbling hands go right for his trousers until Harry stops him with a hand closed tight around his wrist.

"Give me a moment."

"What for?"

"Self-control," Harry says wryly. He helps Eggsy with his own waistcoat and shirt then _finally_ , when there's no other barrier left between them, slides his trousers down his narrow hips and his socks and garters after them.

"You gonna let me touch you?" Eggsy asks faintly. He reaches out, but his hands land on Harry's waist first, fingertips trailing across the gentle delineation of his abs and tracing the line of hair leading down to the base of his frankly glorious cock. "Cos not gonna lie I'm like half a second away from drooling like a fucking dog."

"Give me a moment," Harry says again, but he's laughing as Eggsy's hands travel round to his arse, urging him closer and _closer_ until he's got no choice but to kneel on the bed, one leg either side of Eggsy's waist, cupping his cheek in one hand to kiss him again until Eggsy twists under his weight and flips him down against the pillows. "Not there, not yet," he says, almost whines, breathless and trembling against Eggsy's ear at the questioning slide of fingers around the wet head of his cock. "Here, if you're willing," he adds, finding Eggsy's wrist between them and directing his hand lower, and Eggsy gasps a needy little moan against the dark bruise he's been sucking at the edge of Harry's collarbone.

"If I'm fucking willing," he says in disbelief, finding Harry's mouth with his fingers and pressing inside. Harry sucks them deeper, tongue curling wet and ravenous around two and then three when Eggsy catches his breath and feeds him another. He moves his hand back down between the press of their bodies then and slides his soaking fingertips over Harry's arse until he's tumbling wet open-mouthed gasps against Eggsy's shoulder. "Where's your gear?"

"Top drawer," Harry says gesturing vaguely at the bedside table. When Eggsy leans over to grab it open Harry's on him at once, laying kisses across his shoulders, down the indentation of his spine, hands travelling fucking _everywhere_ until Eggsy's squirming enough that he almost feels in danger of falling off the bed. He rips into a johnny and gets it on himself so fast he almost tears the damn thing, then smacks his palms against Harry's chest and shoves him back against the pillows where he was and puts on a bit of a show with the bottle of lube, stroking himself wet with far more relish than he really needs to just for the pleasure of the starving hungry look in Harry's eyes. "You need?" he checks, and Harry says, "No, _come here_ ," and that's not an instruction he's much in the mood to deny right now. Harry's legs – impossibly, ridiculously long, like three fucking miles long – go up around Eggsy's waist, knees gripping hard somewhere around his ribcage, and the long golden stretch of his throat is too tempting not to kiss when he throws his head back at the first careful push of Eggsy's cock, the slow slide of it pressing inches deep inside.

Harry's swearing like a fucking sailor and it's beautiful, it sounds like poetry. "Slow," he murmurs against Eggsy's mouth, kissing the corner of his lips and his cheek, chin, everywhere he can get to. "Don't stop, darling, come on."

"Darling," Eggsy repeats in a whisper and wants to laugh, or possibly cry, or maybe just stay here forever until he dies with Harry's arse around his cock and fingers clutching tight and twisting in his hair.

"Would you prefer something else?"

"Nope. That's good." He presses another inch deeper and the noise that falls out of Harry's mouth is incredible, gasping and hungry and demanding _more_ until Eggsy pulls out and slides back inside, slow and smooth, sweat starting to prickle his skin and flavour their kisses with salt when Harry's grasping fingers tilt his face up again and he sucks gently on Eggsy's lower lip. "This is okay, yeah?"

"You'll do, I suppose," Harry says, then chokes on a moan and a laugh combined when Eggsy pulls back and drives back in _hard_ to shut him up. "Do that again."

Eggsy does, once. "Yeah. And now?"

"Again."

Again. "Mmhm?"

" _Darling_ ," Harry says, making it sound like an unimpressed admonition and a plea and a shivering prayer all at the same time, and there's no more taunting after that, Eggsy doesn't have the strength for it – he just moves, following the direction of Harry's roaming hands, fucking him hard and sure and shaking until Harry's almost thrashing beneath the press of Eggsy's body, delirious and gasping and barely in control of himself. When he comes it's almost silent, just a long shuddering breath out as he spills over his knuckles and smears between the slide of their bodies, but Eggsy makes enough noise for both of them and several other people as well, muffling desperate swears against Harry's neck and stilling inside him, cock twitching and pulsing until he's done and fucking _exhausted_.

"Well," Harry says after a few minutes of winded silence, lying there with his arm flung across his eyes while Eggsy's disposing of the johnny in a tissue, and Eggsy just says, "Yeah," rolling closer against Harry's heaving side and holding out his fist until Harry gives him a bump and a tired, sated grin.

* * *

When Harry wakes, disturbed by some noise, the illuminated lights of his alarm clock say 2:44 and the bed beside him is empty, although the wrinkled sheets are still warm when he presses his hand there. There's the soft glow of a light filtering through the slightly open door. He wonders for a moment whether he should be concerned that Eggsy's had a change of heart and done a runner, but he dismisses it immediately. Over-confidence is risky sometimes, but where Eggsy is concerned anything else seems foolish. Whatever happens from here, he knows, tonight is _real_.

He goes downstairs in his bare feet, slipping his dressing gown on as he goes and tying it round his naked middle, following the light and the quiet sounds of movement to the dining room and finding Eggsy sitting there at the head of the table, wearing just his pants and Harry's pyjama shirt, with a pot of hummus and some vegetables in front of him. He smiles when he sees Harry, leaning his cheek on his hand. He's always beautiful, but right now Harry sort of wants to freeze time and keep him forever exactly the way he is: all sleepy eyes and tousled hair and quiet, satisfied happiness.

"Left the party before the food came out. After what you just let me do to your arse I didn't think you'd mind me raiding your fridge as well."

"That wasn't a raid." Harry comes over and takes the seat Eggsy pushes out for him. "That was an extremely enthusiastic surrender."

"That was a fucking ruiner for every other fling I'm ever gonna have for the rest of my whole life," Eggsy says, pointing a hummus-loaded carrot stick at him threateningly then biting it off. "The way I see it, you're fucking stuck with me forever, cos I got new standards now and I ain't sure there's anybody in the world who can meet 'em except you."

"Suits me," Harry says, but it falls sort of flat because, really, everything's a little more complicated than that and both of them know it.

"Harry," Eggsy says after a moment, "can I ask you something? You might not be able to gimme a good answer, and that's alright, but if I don't ask I'll go fucking insane."

 _Here we go_ , Harry thinks dismally, although out loud he manages to say, "Of course," and sound halfway polite about it.

"Why in the name of holy fuck is there a dead dog in your toilet?"

"I loved that dog," Harry says with as much dignity as he can muster, and Eggsy starts laughing behind the back of his fingers, pressing them hard against his mouth and doing nothing to muffle the sound.

"All them dead butterflies and beetles and everything, that's some Buffalo Bill shit! I knew you was too perfect to be true, I fucking knew it."

"We all have our quirks."

"Yeah, we ain't all got stuffed Fido and a ton of bugs in picture frames, though."

"Are you finished?"

"Yeah, for now." His eyes are still glimmering, there's still a bit of a quiver in his mouth, but he gets himself under control and goes back to his pepper slices and carrots. "Can I ask you a real question?"

Harry reaches behind himself for the whisky bottle and a couple of glasses. He's got the feeling he's going to need it. "Of course," he says again, replacing one of the glasses on the side table when Eggsy shakes his head.

"Are you gonna be in trouble – or am I – cos I know about your, whatever the fuck it is you are? I never met a tailor before but I know you ain't one, I known since you rung me from a fucking war zone. And I know you probably can't tell me shit, and that's, whatever, fair enough. But I don't want you to get in trouble or, like, have to shoot me in the head or nothing, cos at this point in my life when I'm about to do Romeo that would really, really suck balls."

He conjures up visions of Arthur and Merlin's best disapproving faces in his head, but neither of them do a bloody thing to stop this urge to just tell the truth.

"I have a sort of drug," he says quietly, "injected by dart from a distance, syringe to those who are willing. It causes permanent amnesia. It doesn't affect all memory, merely those about people or events one doesn't need to know about."

"And you're supposed to use it on nosy shits like me who find out too much."

"Yes."

"Like the Men in Black flashy thing."

"Yes, I suppose."

"Right." Eggsy dips another carrot stick and crunches it noisily. He's faking unconcern, but Harry's known how to read people for several years longer than Eggsy's even been alive, and there's something heartbreaking in the downturn of his mouth and the wavering way he's not making much eye contact now. "Don't fucking dart me, I ain't a wild animal. I'll take the needle."

"No, Eggsy." It comes out more exasperated than he means it too, only because he's exhausted and his throat hurts and he can't fucking bear the idea of it not hurting like this every night for as long as he lives. "I don't want to."

"Well, I don't fucking want to either, but I ain't going up against MI6 or nothing just cos I really like you. Like I probably fucking love you or something, ain't that just totally fucking warped? I don't even know you, but I know I wanna be around you."

Harry reaches for his hand, he can't help it. He half-expects Eggsy to pull away from him but he doesn't, he just turns his hand palm-up on the table top and curls his fingers urgently close around Harry's.

"I'm not MI6. Those bloody amateurs wouldn't know panache if it stuck its fingers up their arses and swivelled."

"Panache," Eggsy repeats blankly, then looks like he might start laughing again. "Is that all it takes to become an action hero? Sign me the fuck up."

"I've no doubt you'd be wonderful at anything you tried."

"Pretty good at cowering on a taxi floor while you save my life, yeah." He's staring down at their hands, the interlaced pattern of fingers. "Harry?"

"Eggsy."

"I know after my dad died, I always thought it was the army but it's your company, you gave us a pretty fucking awesome payout. And we woulda swapped it and everything else we owned to get my dad back, obviously, but that ain't how it works so we been trying all this time to live better for him, yeah? My mum got us off that shitty estate into a nicer house, we could pay my lessons then my school fees and competition entries and that. We done alright, we've got good lives, but I know it coulda been so different if we didn't get that help. We still got mates back there and it's just fucking galling watching them struggle as hard as they can and get fucking nowhere, I hate it. And I just wanna say, this thing—" He makes a _you and me_ gesture with the hand not holding Harry's "—I'm glad it was there before we knew who each other was. Cos whatever happens next, I know none of this was cos of any weird old baggage or payback or nothing, it was just cos you're a dirty old man and I'm a grave robber and we fit like a fucking flawless jigsaw."

Harry kisses his forehead, because he can't find the right words, and then his cheek, and his mouth even though it tastes like second-hand hummus. "Will you come back to bed?"

"Will you steal my memories while I'm sleeping?"

"Of course not."

"No, I mean, that's a request. If you're gonna do it, just do it while I'm out and take me home, yeah?"

"Eggsy, come to bed," Harry says again, quiet, slightly desperate, "darling, please," and Eggsy throws his arms around Harry's neck when he stands, pressing his face into the V of bare skin between the lapels of Harry's dressing gown and mouthing a tiny gentle kiss against his bruised collarbone when Harry's arms close tight around his back.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Bad breath kisses, a shower, a revelation, and poor old Merlin gets an eyeful of something he'd rather not.

When Harry wakes it's slow and reluctant, fighting the inevitability of consciousness to squeeze out a final few wonderful seconds of his dream until somewhere in the fuzz of fading sleep he becomes aware that the lips pressing a scatter of kisses on the back of his neck are _real_. His eyes fly open then, wide in the dim almost-light before dawn, although he doesn't move yet – doesn't want to, in case the kissing stops.

Eggsy's laughing quietly against his nape, kisses and murmurs lifting Harry's hair in a fluttering shiver of goosebumps. "Hey," he whispers. His hand curls around Harry's hip, fingers gliding across the silk of his pyjama trousers. "Come on, little spoon, gimme back my arm."

"No," Harry tells him, hoarse from sleep and the glorious battering his throat got last night. He turns his face into the pillow, nose pressed into the warm linen and mouth opening clumsily against Eggsy's trapped arm in something that might be a reciprocal kiss if he could only get his brain and muscles working. "I haven't been this comfortable since about 1981." Behind him Eggsy laughs again, tickling the back of Harry's shoulder, and manages to slide his arm halfway through the gap between Harry's neck and the mattress before Harry grabs his hand and starts kissing his fingers in turn, his knuckles, the salt traces on his sweating palm. "Don't move. I forbid it."

"Yeah, babe, forbid my bladder from emptying all over your arse if you can."

Harry releases him with a disgusted little sound in the back of his throat and hides his eyes in the crook of his elbow when Eggsy flicks the lamp on to navigate the unfamiliar bedroom. He's awake now, grudgingly, enough to be suddenly self-conscious about his vile morning breath and ridiculous candy-floss bed hair. Obviously Eggsy just _has_ to be one of those people who are luminous and beautiful no matter the time of day or night. Harry hears him flushing the loo and rinsing his hands, then he comes back into the bedroom dressed only in his criminally tight black boxers and the paisley pyjama shirt he'd stolen to go on his kitchen expedition in the middle of the night, the other half to the trousers Harry's got on under the covers. Harry's broad in the shoulders but even so the silk is straining over Eggsy's chest, the lines of taut muscle in his chest and arms clearly visible through the fabric. He's left the top few buttons open to compensate for his utterly absurd physique, collar slipping low and showing off a taunting shadow of collarbone when he lifts his arm to yawn widely against his cuff.

"Looks better on you than it does on me," Harry tells him, peeking from underneath the elbow thrown over his face, and Eggsy gives him a brilliant grin before lifting the bottom edge of the duvet and fucking _crawling_ from the foot of the mattress right up the length of Harry's body until they're face to face, his cock a heavy, hot pressure against Harry's. Harry's hands find Eggsy's waist almost on a reflex, fingers spread wide against the bare skin under his shirt and tapping a nervous little drumroll there until Eggsy's squirming at the touch, huffing a quiet spill of laughter against Harry's mouth when he kisses him.

"Ticklish?"

"Only there."

"Shall I stop?"

"Nope," Eggsy murmurs, sucking gently for a too-brief moment on Harry's lower lip.

"Your garlic breath is quite unbearable."

"Your dick breath ain't exactly Chanel Number Five, I gotta be honest." Not that he seems to care; he coaxes Harry's mouth open with his tongue and kisses him, slow, insistent, fingers threading through his hair and holding him close as if Harry's got anything even approaching the intention to stop. "What's the time?"

"Five forty-six."

"My alarm woulda gone off in fourteen minutes anyway."

"At _six_? Bloody hell, I might have crammed the fucking phone down your throat if it had." That was either the right or wrong thing to say, depending on perspective; Eggsy's perfect eyebrows raise high over his glimmering green eyes and faintly smiling mouth and he makes a filthy little rolling motion with his hips, nudging his arse back to rest against Harry's cock.

"Got anything else to cram there?"

Merlin's timing, as ever, is perfect. It's like the bastard is there in the room with them, slyly waiting for the right moment to ruin things: Harry's phone lights up with a text notification, and he hides his face behind his bent arm again, then adds the other for good measure although it does absolutely nothing extra to muffle his frustrated groan.

"Will you excuse me for one minute? I really must reply to this or—"

"Yeah, I know. World War Three or something, right?" The shadows and dim grey light turn all of Eggsy's angles soft, blunting the sharp line of his jaw and the pointed arch of his eyebrows. His hair is tousled, sticking up in all directions; that, plus the sudden look of uncertainty on his face, as though he's only just remembered their conversation from the night before, makes him look years younger than twenty-five. It's disconcerting, for Harry's brain at least; his cock has no objections, of course, except for a needy little twitch when Eggsy clambers off him. "Usually go for a run in the mornings but it's either this—" He gestures at his badly-fitting pyjama shirt and tented underpants combo "—or my suit, so maybe not, hey? Besides..." His voice trails off and he looks at Harry for a moment, then away, vaguely awkward. "Am I allowed to leave?"

"You're not a prisoner." It's a compulsion: Harry _can't stop touching him_ , tracing gentle fingertips across the curve of sculpted muscle in his thigh, and Eggsy twists round a bit from his perch on the edge of the bed to look down at Harry where he's still lying against the flattened pillows, unreadable expression giving way to a soft, helpless smile. "There's a treadmill in the spare room, you're welcome to use that if you'd rather not scandalise the neighbours with your attire. I'll make this call then see about conjuring up some breakfast."

"Alright. Best leave this with you, then." He doesn't bother unfastening the buttons, he just grasps the stolen pyjama shirt by the hem and drags it smoothly over his head, turning it inside-out in the process and dropping it in a soft silken heap on Harry's bare chest. Harry puts his hand on the fabric like a reflex as soon as it touches his skin, pressing it closer, soaking up the residual heat of Eggsy's sleeping body and wondering how the fuck he's ever supposed to wear these pyjamas again without giving himself a nosebleed. "Wouldn't wanna get sweat all over it or nothing."

By the time Harry's figured out a reply that's more than a ragged swoony sigh and a string of lewd promises, Eggsy's vanished out into the hall, pausing in the doorway just long enough to glance back and _smirk_. Harry's hands feel damp with sweat suddenly – really this is getting ridiculous now, this uncontrollable way his entire body seems to fucking fall apart in Eggsy's presence – and he slips his glasses on and taps the line open so he doesn't have to fumble about getting smeary fingerprints all over his phone screen.

"Merlin."

"Hang on, debriefing with Percival. Be with you in a tick."

"Not a problem," Harry grumbles, "take your bloody time," and promptly dozes off to the quiet rhythmic thud of bare feet running next door, warm under the duvet with the pyjama shirt bunched up under his head so he can smell Eggsy's sweat like an absolute pervert every time he breathes in.

"Galahad," Merlin says eventually, and Harry jerks awake, mopping up drool with the pyjama sleeve and cursing under his breath.

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Sleep is for the weak. Jesus, are you _still_ in bed?"

Harry wriggles his foot under the covers where Merlin should be able to see through his glasses camera. "For god's sake, it's not even half six. I should be unconscious for another two hours yet."

"Billy Elliot an early riser?"

"Something like that," Harry says innocently, remembering with a delicious shiver the hardness he'd felt jabbing him in the backside as he awoke. "Any luck identifying the chaps from last night?"

"Not much left to identify," Merlin says grimly. "Their heads are being hosed off the walls of the interrogation cells as we speak."

"Bloody hell. Was that Gawain? Arthur's going to need to have another word about going overboard with his—"

"Bedivere, and it wasn't anything he did. They just exploded when he was questioning them, knocked the poor lad clean across the room. Brains all over his brand new Rainmaker, he's fuming."

"Heads don't just _explode_."

"These did."

"So no idea who they were or why they were after me?"

"Well, aren't we feeling full of ourselves this morning?" Merlin's voice, which had been drifting into faint amusement, turns sharp and serious again. "They had photos of your young Baryshnikov in their pockets when we searched them. Seems he was about to become the umpteenth minor celebrity disappearance, if you hadn't gone barging in like Liam Neeson." Harry feels a hot trickle of dread slide down the length of his spine at that, though it's quickly cancelled out by a burst of fury almost as vicious as the one he'd felt the night before when he'd whirled round and took out the throat of the man who'd shot Eggsy. "So, under the circumstances, maybe Arthur will be lenient about the absolute shitstorm you caused showing off like that in a residential area, though that doesn't change the brick of explanatory paperwork you've got that needs to be completed and in your outbox _today_ , please."

Harry nudges his glasses up with his knuckles so he can pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the rising headache that always appears like an allergic reaction any time someone mentions paperwork. "Wonderful. Is that all?"

"Afraid not."

"Of course not. Do continue."

"My contact at Scotland Yard forwarded me some CCTV footage of a double abduction last night. They're planning their own investigation, but with all the disappearances lately they're stretched pretty thin and she thought we might fare better. Same sort of deal as your attackers, unregistered car, highly trained fighters, only this time, of course, there was nobody to take them out. Three guesses at who was snatched, first two don't count. Go."

"I don't know," Harry tells him wearily, although he's got a pretty good idea and it's no surprise when Merlin says their names.

"Roxanne Morton and Charles Hesketh. So." There's an unpleasant sort of pause. "Afraid it's bring your puppy to work day, we're gonna need to find out what he knows of Valentine and the woman with the blades and what they said to _JESUS FUCK_ —" The swear blasts out of him like a bullet, he's seeing exactly what Harry is: Eggsy, practically naked, flushed everywhere and gleaming with sweat all over, comes sauntering into the bedroom hooking his damp underpants out of his crack with a casual fingertip.

"Hey, Harry. Hey, Harry's imaginary friend." He gives a mock salute, drops a mischievous little wink, and heads into Harry's ensuite bathroom calling back over his shoulder, "Ain't really polite to ask but I'm gonna need to borrow some underwear, mine's rank."

Silence on the line.

"Merlin, if that's everything I think I'll go and take a shower."

"You're fired."

"Put a breakfast order in at the kitchen for two, would you? We'll be in shortly."

He closes the line before Merlin can tell him to bugger off and heads for the bathroom, creeping silently to the open door just so he can make entirely sure that wink was an invitation before he goes charging in. Eggsy is a blur of golden skin behind the frosted glass of the shower door, water beating down on his shoulders and the back of his neck. He's leaning his forehead against the tiles, not washing, just standing there motionless until Harry clears his throat loudly enough to be heard over the scattering water and then he swings the door open, settling his face back into that taunting smirk he's so good at.

"Oi, Peeping Tom, you coming in or what?" He shamelessly watches Harry drop his trousers, grin broadening, and shifts up to give him enough room to step in and close the door behind himself. "Bit cosy, innit?"

"A bit," Harry agrees, trying for nonchalance and utterly failing at the first touch of Eggsy's fingertips tracing wet lines across his cheeks, tilting his head back into the shower spray and soaking his hair.

"You got curls. Nearly fucking swallowed my tongue when I woke up and seen you."

"An unfortunate genetic cross I have to bear."

"Shut up, I love it."

"We need to talk. This is probably not the ideal location."

"Best be quick then," Eggsy murmurs, mouth opening hotly against Harry's pulse to kiss him there, the front of his throat, across to his opposite shoulder. "This first." He slides his hand down Harry's side and across the ridge of muscle at his hip to where his cock is doing its best to wave for attention, curling his fingers around and very gently squeezing. "Talking after."

"I don't believe that's the way you'd rank your priorities if you knew what it was I needed to tell you."

"Can we do something to fix whatever it is in the next three minutes?"

"Probably not."

"So shut the fuck up." He's even graceful sinking to his knees in a tiny cramped shower cubicle. Everything he does looks like dancing, every single movement: the stretch and flex of his arm muscles when he reaches up to hold Harry still at the hips; the way his fingers briefly splay and comb back through his own hair, darkened by the streaming water, to push it out of his face; his eyes closed against the spray, long lashes turned to wet spikes; and his mouth, unholy heat closing around the tip of Harry's cock and tongue flickering all around the head of him until Harry has to lean back against the tiled wall, no longer trusting his knees to hold him steady. He reaches up to tilt the shower head, water landing on his shoulder now and streaming down his body instead of hitting Eggsy right in the face, and then down, fingers tracing trembling little patterns across his cheek and the curve of his jaw. Eggsy makes a noise around him, an encouraging sort of wordless murmur that sends a shockwave of vibrations right to Harry's soul so that when he comes just minutes later, silent and shaking, he feels it in his fingertips and scalp and the lazy way his mouth doesn't seem to want to work with words any more.

Eggsy spits down the plughole, elbows Harry aside so he can rinse them both off in the shower spray, then with that same effortless grace as before he rises to his feet and then onto tiptoe, wet arms slithering around Harry's neck. "It's the glasses, ain't it?"

"What?" Harry asks stupidly as he's trying to calm down his breathing, brain still stuttering like a badly-tuned radio.

"Knew it was something but couldn't figure out what, I knew you wasn't just talking to yourself. Thought you musta had some space age hands-free hooked up somewhere I couldn't see, then I seen you talking to yourself in bed just now with nothing on but your glasses. That's some IMF shit you got there, bruv."

"IMF is fictional."

Eggsy pushes him under the shower again, finding a shampoo bottle on the rack and dumping some out onto Harry's hair. "Are you Torchwood?" he asks with that dimpled little smirk again as he's lathering up the foam – far too much, so Harry scoops off a handful and starts washing Eggsy's hair for him too, which makes him laugh faintly and nudge his head closer into the pull of Harry's fingers like a spoilt cat.

"Also fictional."

"Yeah, that sounds exactly like what you'd say if you was." Eggsy takes a half-step closer – it's all he can manage, as confined as they are – and raises one eyebrow in a sort of _come on_ instruction, or possibly a plea, as his cock presses hard and urgent against Harry's thigh. "Rinse. Hurry up."

They manage it, amazingly, without either one of them being blinded by shampoo, then there's a scramble of hands and bottles and flannels for the quickest wash possible, and a horrifying moment where Harry almost slips on the wet tiles as he's stepping out of the shower because Eggsy's impatient and trying to rush him back to the bedroom.

"Oops," he says unconvincingly, using the action of wrapping a towel around Harry's waist as an excuse to sneak an extremely extensive arse grope. He flings himself at the bed without bothering to dry off, he just rolls around in the sheets for a moment then splays there, naked and shameless, arms curved up above his head and legs dropped sideways in a messy, inviting sprawl that makes Harry wish he'd never got off in the shower, lovely though it was. "You gonna do something about this—" He points at the hard, glorious curve of his cock "—or not?"

"Depends." Harry leans against the bathroom doorframe, arms folded, faking a casualness he absolutely does not feel under these circumstances. "If I don't, will you do it yourself?"

"Why, do you wanna watch?" His eyebrows fly up again and he starts laughing, muffling it into a pillow as if he's suddenly self-conscious. When he emerges again his cheeks are pink and his eyes are sparkling with mirth and something else, a teasing edge of something darker. "Fucking hell, you really are a dirty old man. How'd I get this lucky?"

Harry wants to reply – a protestation, or agreement, or a plea to stop and listen for one second – but can't make his mouth work except around a jagged sort of sigh, an exhalation that seems to come from the very pit of his lungs and leaves him feeling breathless and empty, when Eggsy curls his fingers tight around his own cock and slowly starts to move. He's deliberately putting on a show, watching through his half-lidded eyes for Harry's reaction as he contorts on the bed into positions that look magnificent and painful all at once, limbs stretching and twisting as his pleasure builds, spine arching off the bed, every straining muscle in his perfect sculpted body working to get him to the finish – and when it happens it's hard and sudden, head smashing back into the pillows and mouth hanging open, wet and bitten red and fumbling helplessly around nonsense words and desperate little sounds as he splashes over his own knuckles and the rock hard ridges of his abs.

"Come here," Eggsy tells him between tremors, reaching out with grabby fingers until Harry's close enough to be pulled down onto the bed and kissed with a ferocity bordering on pain. He kisses back, unable to resist, and for a minute there's nothing else in the world: no Kingsman, no Royal Ballet, definitely no incomprehensible kidnap plot, just Eggsy's trembling fingers blotting themselves clean on Harry's towel then twisting through the wet curls of his hair to hold him close in a kiss that feels like it might never end. "Harry," he says desperately, half losing the word in Harry's mouth like it's being licked up and swallowed down, "this ain't fair."

Harry twists, employs a clever little trick move he learned in combat training as a recruit about a million years ago, and ends up on his back across the mattress with Eggsy above him, an enjoyably heavy weight pressing down on his chest and stomach just on the right side of pain. "What's not fair?"

"Everything. All this. Me just waiting like a fucking numpty for you to flashy thing me."

"I said I'm not going to."

"Yeah but you _could_ and that's fucking horrible, just knowing you could if you felt like it."

It wrongfoots him a bit, it takes a moment to think of something to say and even then it's just a repetition, flat and useless even though it's true. "Eggsy. I'm not going to."

"Alright," Eggsy mutters, not sounding very sure about it. He shuffles off Harry's body, settling beside him instead with one bare leg slung over Harry's thigh and his fingers slipping gently back into the drying curls of his hair, smoothing them back behind his ear. Harry turns and finds Eggsy's hand, pressing a kiss into his palm that almost makes him smile. "Thought that mighta been what you wanted to talk about. What was it, then?"

"I'm afraid you're going to be livid with me for not telling you, so I'll remind you that I did try repeatedly and you insisted you weren't going to listen."

"Yeah, alright, whatever. What?"

He goes very still when Harry starts to explain what little he knows – the celebrity kidnaps, the intentions of their attackers the night before, Roxy and Charlie, the woman with the blades – and then when Harry falls silent, waiting in dread for some sort of explosion, Eggsy still doesn't move or speak for a long, long time.

"Alright," he says eventually, voice tight with the terrifying sort of fury that burns cold instead of hot. "So let's go and fetch them back."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some backstory in sestina form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO BEHIND on updating this thing and I'm sorry this isn't even a proper chapter, I've just been stuck in writer's block hell for weeks now. It will come! Hopefully soon. Like ch5, this is just another bit of idiocy scribbled on post-its during a boring work meeting to keep my brain from seeping out my nose...

**3 years ago:**

The first time was on a mission, a fake date, sitting down  
in the stalls with a Russian arms dealer and whiskey and ice.  
The lights dimmed, Mendelssohn soared, the curtain rose  
and he faked an interest in ballet that he'd never felt – but  
then he saw Puck smiling, barely-dressed, lithe and fair.  
"Okay?" asked his earpiece, and Harry whispered, " _Fuck_."

Merlin gave the order and he shot the Russian mid-fuck  
(not very gentlemanly but so it goes), lay him down  
on the bed, noticed the curious looks as he fled – an affair  
gone wrong, a cock for hire, sordid fantasies in the bored eyes  
of the hotel staff who hadn't heard the silenced gunshot – but  
in the car his only thought was: _I wonder if Puck likes roses_.

From a rooftop in Tokyo he told Merlin, "Please send roses.  
The best. Spare no expense," and Merlin groaned, "Fuck's  
sake, Harry, not again," as Harry span and slammed the butt  
of his gun into his attacker's head until he went down.  
"Mind on the mission, if you please, not some twink's pretty eyes."  
Which, since he'd never failed a job, seemed somewhat unfair.

**2 years ago:**

Drinking merlot in the Palais Garnier bar, he asked, "Un autre verre,"  
intending to send it over, but Gary was drinking bloody rosé,  
while the friends he was with chugged cider and ice.  
Laughing Londoners, every other word shit or piss or fuck,  
lads in hoodies and trainers: there were people looking down  
on them as though they didn't belong in this world, but

if they noticed they didn't care. He watched Gary rebut  
every snob with a cool, amused glance: "Do you think it's fair,"  
he seemed to say, "really, that you're putting me down  
now I'm in your space when an hour ago you all rose  
to your designer-shod feet to applaud me? Well, fuck  
that. Fuck that hard." For a fleeting moment then his eyes

met Harry's – wonderful eyes, bright beautiful huge green eyes –  
then wandered on, and Harry drank the second glass but  
didn't taste a thing; his mouth felt numb, and his hands, fuck,  
trembling like hell on the delicate crystal stem. _So unfair_ ,  
he thought wildly, _I'm fifty fucking years old_ – and he rose,  
turned, walked out into the night with his eyes resolutely down.

**1 year ago:**

While saving the world he googled Gary's eyes, dogs, affairs,  
(also his butt on an incognito window), sent more roses,  
freefalling into fucking obsession down and down and down.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is terrible at declarations of love, but Eggsy kind of digs it.

It's a fifteen minute drive to the shop, and Eggsy spends most of it on the phone. He fidgets when he's worried, tapping his fingers nervously on the ridge of the door where it meets the closed window. He keeps running a hand through his hair, still damp so that tousling it makes it stick up in all directions. Harry resists for about a nanosecond, which he thinks displays great self-control under these most trying of circumstances, then gently grasps Eggsy's wrist and places his hand on the seat between them.

"You look as though you've been dragged through a hedge," he tells him, brushing his fingers through the scruffy blond mess until it's marginally neater. Eggsy sort of smiles for a brief flicker of a moment, but as soon as Harry releases him his wandering hand returns there, distracted and indeliberate, scraping the locks back off his forehead and holding them there scrunched at his crown as he waits for the phone to connect.

"Yeah," he says, "it's me again, Mum, Steve, pick up if you're home. Gonna try Jamal. Ring me if you get this, yeah?" A frustrated jab at the end call button then another scroll through his contacts. "Eyy bruv I need a favour, yeah? Sorry it's the crack of dawn but it's pretty urgent, ring me soon as. Owe you one. _Fuck_ ," he spits suddenly, squeezing his phone hard in his fist and tapping that against the door now too. "How come the world's carrying on like nothing's fucking going to shit? They're all at work and that like—" Then his phone rings, the awful screeching tones of some song Harry's never heard, and Eggsy answers it with, "Mate, you – wait, are you shitting _right now_? Yeah I never meant _that_ urgent, fucksake. No, you're here now, just listen, alright, can you do me this one solid and I'll never ask you for nothing again my whole life? Yeah bruv. Just go round mine and feed the dogs and take them for a run? Poor fuckers been on their own all night. Yeah, it's a fucking long story, I ain't sure how much I'm allowed to say."

Eggsy glances at Harry then, eyebrows raised in question, until Harry says quietly, "Their disappearance is on the news already," and then he frowns, a fury so uncharacteristic that he looks like somebody else entirely.

"Oh alright, apparently it's on the news. Me and Rox and Charlie got attacked, they're missing, I'm with a..." The briefest hesitation before he continues "...cop going in to give a statement. Yeah, I'm alright. Didn't know they was both gone til this morning else I woulda been home. Yeah, well, none of your business, actually. Yes I used a johnny, fucking hell. Get off the phone. None of your business." His gaze is hovering somewhere around Harry's midsection, lingering there for a long moment and then slowly dragging up to rest at his mouth and finally his eyes, giving him a crooked sort of smile. "A top of the range ten. No lie. Now fuck off. Thanks, bruv, owe you big time. Be back soon as I can. If you talk to Mum before I do tell her I'm ok, yeah? Alright, laters."

When he sighs and settles back into the corner of the seat with his head resting against the cool glass of the window, there's something slightly calmer about him. "My brother," he says. "Stepbrother. Shit scared of dogs, he got bit by this mental little Yorkie when we was kids back in the flats, never really trusted 'em since. He's getting better. Let Monty lick his hand last time he was over without recoiling like it burnt him. Then Charlie..."

He fades off to nothing, pulling a twisted sort of grimace with his face and turning his phone over and over in his hands, fidgety again, before fumbling it the right way up and scrolling through his contacts again. "Hey, Mr Hesketh, it's Gary. Spose you're speaking to the police or whatever. Just letting you know I got someone looking after Montague and, well, I spose that ain't exactly high on your priorities right now, hey. Just checking in, then. Gonna talk to the police now too. So yeah. Hope you're doing okay. Bye." Then he groans and crashes his head gently against the glass a few times. "Fucking idiot. Like he don't hate me enough already."

"Why on earth would he hate you?"

"I dunno, ask him. Cos he's the director of the company and I'm better than his son," he adds after a moment, fleeting mischievous smile lighting up his face for the briefest of moments before he fades back to looking anxious, brows drawn close and his lower lip trapped and whitening between his teeth as he finds yet another number. "Hey. Eggsy. Seen the news, yeah? They come for me too but I got away, gonna go and talk to the cops now so gonna miss class til, I dunno, whenever I'm allowed away. Yeah I _know_ I can't just skive off whenever I feel like it, I ain't exactly having a nice day off for the fun of it, you get me? Alright, yeah, bye. Fucking _teachers_ ," he mutters as he's poking viciously at his phone to end the call, "swear to god, you wouldn't get a pass even if the world was ending. Roxy's parents died and she only got like three days bereavement leave before they was back on the blower going get back in else we're giving someone else your Spring Fairy. It's fucking brutal."

He stares out the window for a while as they're skirting the south edge of Hyde Park; Harry can see the twitch of muscle and shifting skin where Eggsy's clenching his jaw, as though he's fighting himself not to carry on talking. _Talk_ , he wants to say. _Please carry on. Let me abandon my Bach and Billie Holiday and Joe Strummer and listen to nothing but your voice until the end of time_. It doesn't really feel like the moment is right for grand romantic hyperbole so he stays quiet, hands folded neatly in his lap, waiting for Eggsy to look at him.

The look doesn't come. Instead, Eggsy lets his gaze wander around the interior of the cab like a skittish butterfly, touching on the floor and cigar rack and the grain of the leather seat but never quite settling anywhere, and never making it as far as Harry. A deep breath in, a slow release out, then he says, "Harry, you know last night?"

"Yes."

"Remember when I said I loved you?"

There's a strange muted sensation of something slowly exploding in Harry's stomach, warmth rippling out across his skin in a flood of goosebumps. Of fucking course he remembers, it's as clear as the YouTube rehearsal and performance videos he's memorised well enough to project onto the inside of his eyelids every time he closes them. "You said you _probably_ loved me."

"Same difference."

"Is it? They seem like very different statements to me."

Eggsy finally looks at him, perfect pointed eyebrows raised high in a sort of 'go on' gesture.

"Well," Harry says slowly, trying to corral his scattered, bursting emotions into real regimented sentences. "'I love you' is what it is. 'I probably love you' is hedging. That's a man on his own in a strange kitchen in the middle of the night, perhaps in some sort of post-being-shot-at shock, undoubtedly exhausted from what was frankly a spectacular lifechanger of a fuck, who's still trying to figure out what the bloody hell is going on."

"Fucking hell, don't just say _fuck_ out of nowhere like that, my face is on fire." He's got his phone clamped between his thighs now so he can hold both palms over his burning cheeks. "I mean not that I'm disagreeing or nothing with your assessment of it." Harry meets his slightly bashful sideways grin with one of his own. "Just, you basically said what I wanted to say. Like I know it's coming on too strong and that. I don't wanna scare you off or nothing. I ain't some bunny boiler, I know we known each other like five minutes. Just forget I said it, yeah? I weren't thinking straight. It was like, I dunno, temporary insanity or some—"

"Eggsy," Harry says crisply, because he's not sure he can bear this stumbling a moment longer, "I've seen you perform sixty-two times. I took a dreadful month-long job in New York last year simply because you were guesting there. I've spent close to fifteen thousand pounds on flowers you probably throw away every night. When I type G into my browser it autofills with your blog address even before Google." Eggsy's mouth is hanging open slightly, but in for a penny in for a pound and so on. "My favourite of JB's outfits is the little flying jacket with the fur collar in your video from December 2014. One time I was terribly gone on painkillers in hospital and _cried_ at a picture on your Instagram of JB riding Pyotr's back like a horse. You said once in a Sunday Times interview that your favourite album is Rubber Soul and I listened to nothing else for a week until I liked it too. I'm a stalker. I'm like a child in the first throes of puberty discovering One Direction. Someone bought me a signed photograph on eBay for Secret Santa last year and I hid you between the pages of a book of medieval love poetry. I am besotted with you almost to the point of it being criminal. You're consuming my life. I assure you there's nothing, absolutely _nothing_ you could say that would ever scare me off."

There's a long silence.

"Perhaps a well-deserved restraining order," Harry finally concedes. "But nothing less."

"Harry," Eggsy says, wide-eyed and breathless. He scrambles across the empty stretch of seat between them and gets right up in Harry's face, palms sliding across the fresh shave of his jaw and one thumb sweeping, possessive, across his cheekbone. "Pretty sure I love you but you need to get a fucking grip—" Which is fair enough, only the kiss he presses clumsily to Harry's mouth then is hungry and wild, touching the edge of desperation. He tilts Harry's head with his hands and goes in again, better this time, the curl of his tongue and the gentle way he sucks on Harry's lower lip as they're parting. "Never had a stalker before," he murmurs between kisses, winding Harry's silk tie around his fist to keep him close, bumping noses, sliding his other fingers over Harry's pulse and briefly around his neck like a second collar. Harry swallows hard, feeling the slide of his sore throat nudge against Eggsy's palm and remembering every single atom of the cock he'd had stuffed there the night before, and Eggsy moves back just enough to look at him: his wet mouth, his eyes, the hot beating place where the web of his thumb and first finger is pressed. "It's ace. I dunno why everyone keeps complaining."

* * *

Harry's aware of both the general amusement at his absurd devotion to the young lovely dancer and the almost electric swiftness of the Kingsman gossip train, but the relentless whispering that follows them around for the rest of the day still comes as a bit of a surprise. It probably doesn't help, really, that they've both got purple undereye smudges from not enough sleep and Harry's sporting some fairly incriminating stubble burn all around his mouth and chin from Eggsy's scratchy face, nor that Eggsy is wearing his suit trousers from the night before with a t-shirt and beige cardigan that clearly belong to Harry, too-long sleeves turned up at his wrists. Luckily Arthur is away somewhere on business. It's bad enough having to dodge the rest of the staff and agents without having him glowering his displeasure over the whole situation like some disapproving god.

"Excuse me," Harry murmurs to the others the fourth time someone (Lancelot) bursts into the dining room on some flimsy pretence just to ogle Eggsy and laugh at Harry, and he gets up to wedge a chair under the doorhandle.

"That's two hundred years old," Merlin says when he sits back down, and Harry looks at him silently until he appears to decide it's not a fight worth the effort and starts swiping his tablet again. "Again, please, Eggsy."

"I dunno what else you want me to say." He's getting frustrated now, tired but jumped up on coffee. "I told you like nine times."

"Is there anything else at all you remember them discussing? Even something that seems small and unimportant."

"Nope. Just this fucking crackpot theory, the earth's sick, humans are the virus. We was polite to his face. Lot of rich nutters about, you know? Money's money, we don't give a shit who it comes from, his money's as good as anyone's, but we was like nah mate if genocide's your only option just embrace the end of days, yeah? Didn't think he was being fuckin' _serious_ , we thought it was just one of them stupid moral arguments people get into when they're drunk at parties. Then..." He trails off and glances at Harry as though he's unsure of how to word it. "Well, I seen Harry leaving so I went after him. Then you know what happened after that, the car chase and shit. Never realised til this morning they'd gone after Rox and Charlie too."

"If it's any consolation," Percival says quietly from his place across the table from Eggsy, where he's taking notes on a legal pad, "your friends fought like devils. What's the..." He makes a vague sort of scissoring motion with his first two fingers. "When you jump with one leg and the second beats it back into the air? Mr Hesketh knocked a fellow clean out with that."

"Charlie cabrioled a kidnapper in the face," Eggsy says tonelessly, then he bursts out laughing in a way that sounds horrible, like he's half a second away from crying. "He fuckin' would, the show-off. What about Roxy, she fouetté someone in the nads or something?"

"If fouetté means 'drive her knee into his groin so hard it ruptures both his testicles' then yes." Percival's smiling in a way that's only perceptible to people who've known him for years, no change to his mouth but the very slightest crinkle at the corners of his eyes. "Marvellous."

"Yeah, good girl, Rox," Eggsy says through his awful panicked laughter. Harry hesitates, itching to touch him but not sure whether it'll be welcome, then does it anyway: a hand on his shoulder, pressing tight, calming. Eggsy reaches up and grabs it, winding their fingers together, and stares into the cooling dregs of his coffee until his hysteria winds itself down to ragged wet breathing. "You think they're alright? I mean, is there gonna be backlash for resisting?"

"Hard to say," Merlin murmurs, frowning as he's tapping at his tablet to send the video recorded by Percival's glasses to the big screen. "Percival, you were there. Thoughts?"

"Hard to say," Percival repeats, "but there was every opportunity to kill them during the capture. I believe they're wanted alive, as were all the others." They watch in silence, Roxy and Charlie flashing into and out of view as Percival fights his way towards them through four brutes with machine guns. By the time he's laid them all out on the road, the dancers have disappeared behind the tinted windows of an armoured car the same as the one that chased Harry and Eggsy down the Victoria Embankment and it's screaming away in a scorch of tyres. "I gave chase but I'm afraid I lost them. Merlin's chaps are combing the city CCTV now trying to pick up their trail."

"Can I get some fresh air?" Eggsy asks suddenly, and Merlin starts closing the screen and shuffling all his notepapers into a neat pile.

"Of course. That's enough for one day. Thank you for your time."

"Can I go home?"

"Yes," Merlin says at the same time as Harry says, "No." They look at each other then, Percival and Eggsy glancing from one to another like spectators at a tennis match.

"No?" Merlin says, eyebrows raised and wrinkling his forehead.

"Absolutely not. What if they come back for him? A pug, a poodle, and a bloody lazy German shepherd aren't going to do a damn bit of good if they do."

"Harry," Merlin says mildly, "I did assume by 'home' he meant _your_ home, or that you'd accompany him to his own. Maybe I misunderstood the hand holding, the stubble rash, the sharing of cardigans, the appalling—"

"For heaven's sake, we get the point," Harry snaps, and Merlin bloody _smirks_ because that's the sort of godawful best friend he is.

"I've a new mission for you, one I think you'll enjoy rather a lot more than surveillance in Bognor Regis. Bodyguard."

In the five minutes it takes to get from the dining room to the waiting cab, somebody (probably Lancelot) steals Harry's phone, changes the ringtone to _I Will Always Love You_ , and slips it back into his pocket. Working with spies is the fucking worst.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's called back to work when there's no sign of any further attempt on Eggsy's life. Obviously, that's when there's another attempt on Eggsy's life.

The first night Harry spends at Eggsy's place is bizarrely domestic and completely delightful, even under the circumstances. Eggsy's worried half to death, he can feel it churning in his belly like an insistent thuggish ghost of the carsickness he'd conquered years before, but just having someone around makes it all a bit easier. That the person is Harry, with his tendency to touch and _cuddle_ and play with Eggsy's hair without seeming to realise he's doing it, is a glorious bonus he's probably never going to get used to.

"Hey," he says softly, and Harry's fingers pause on their path through Eggsy's hair. Eggsy looks up from his place on Harry's thigh, the most comfortable perfect pillow his head's ever known, and adds, "Did I say stop?"

Harry's eyebrows raise and a slow smile blossoms on his mouth as he starts to move again, fingertips lightly scratching, pulling gently as they comb through Eggsy's hair. "You're tremendous when you get bossy. There's a certain look you get on your face..." He's been doing some kind of secret spy type work while Eggsy watches an old rerun of Top of the Pops, and leaves his tablet balanced carefully on the sofa arm so he can reach down with his other hand and touch two fingertips to the place just below Eggsy's lower lip. "Right here. That abysmal smirk you do."

"Abysmal," Eggsy repeats, trying not to laugh – not because anything's funny, especially now in the too-quiet flat when he's become so used to Roxy and Charlie's voices that their absence is a horrible jarring loss, but because Harry's looking at him the way he always looks at him, like Eggsy is something beautiful painted in oils by Rossetti and framed on the wall of the Tate, and laughter is the only way his idiot body knows how to deal with the overwhelming surge of whatever the fuck it is he's feeling. He catches Harry's forefinger between his teeth and bites down very gently at the base of his nail, flicking his tongue there just to watch the instant shift of something dark and starving in Harry's eyes. "Say nicer things else you ain't getting in my pants tonight."

"That wonderful smirk you do," Harry amends immediately, briefly flashing one of his own before he resettles his face into an expression of innocent boredom and goes back to his tablet.

"Better." For a while there's silence, just Tenpole Tudor and Adam Ant on the telly and the noise of the traffic outside. JB is a heavy weight on Eggsy's stomach, curled up there like a croissant and snoring like an old man. When he dangles his arm off the sofa he gets twin snuffles and licks from Monty and Pyotr, who both settled down as close to Eggsy and Harry as they possibly could as if to compensate for not being able to drape themselves all over Charlie and Roxy as usual. "Harry?"

"Mm?

"You, Kingsman, I mean, you dealt with kidnappings before, right?"

"Yes."

"What's your success rate for getting people back unhurt?"

Harry doesn't answer for a moment, turning off his tablet and moving it to the side table as if to show he's giving this his full attention. "Mine, or the organisation overall?"

"Both."

"You know I shouldn't be talking to you about my work."

"Yeah but I also know you don't give a fuck about the rules and can't say no to me anyway."

Harry's smiling again, a look of such besotted dopey adoration that it's almost disgusting. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. If I clicked my fingers and said tell me all your secrets you'd be like yes sir do you want them in writing or verbal—" His words cut off abruptly when Harry cups his massive beautiful hand over the entire lower half of Eggsy's face and presses gently down on his mouth to shut him up, sending a sudden flood of shuddering goosebumps rocketing down his spine and out to tingle in all his extremities.

"Appalled you think I'm so easy," Harry says, not sounding appalled in the slightest, especially not when Eggsy reaches up to undo a couple of his shirt buttons and slip his hand inside, fingers and palm sliding slow across the frankly unnecessary perfection of Harry's abs and feeling the twitch there as his breathing stutters. With his hand still covering Eggsy's mouth, the other still twisting and pulling in his hair, Harry finally says, "The last time I looked at the figures I believe we had an eighty-nine percent success rate overall for hostage recovery. Personally, I've lost four hostages out of countless dozens over more than thirty years. I assure you, I'm as good at my job as you are at yours." He removes his hand from Eggsy's mouth, moving down to scratch JB on the back of his head when he wakes up yawning and grumbling, and gives him a reassuring smile that's all in his eyes, dark and unwavering. "I give you my word, we'll find them."

* * *

Turns out that finding them is more of an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation than they first thought, especially as the rest of the world has rudely declined to stop trying to kill each other while they sort things out. Six days after being assigned as Eggsy's bodyguard and with not even a whiff of trouble Harry is called onto a different job in Russia: one that can't wait, he tells Eggsy as he's climbing out of bed in the middle of the night and groping around the carpet for the underpants. Eggsy, barely awake, manages a clumsy goodbye kiss before he fades back into his dreams, and doesn't hear Harry leave – but he misses him in the morning, sitting alone at the breakfast table for the first time in a week just staring at the walls, at the picture of himself and Harry he'd stuck to the fridge with a novelty magnet shaped like a pair of boobs. The morning is strange, far too quiet, struggling with all three dog leads on his run, walking to class alone instead of going in Harry's car like usual.

Being attacked on his way home is a bit of a surprise as well.

He sees the car first – black, tinted windows, no number plates – and then three figures in masks as they leap out the doors. Adrenaline spikes hard, it's like the recoil of a punch, and he _runs_. He's seen these fuckers fighting. He's been in his own fights over the years but they've usually been with Charlie who's basically a coward and more bark than bite, and both of them were always too wary of injury and bruises to really go for it anyway. There's no way in hell he'll stand a chance if they reach him or if their guns come out, he's not Harry, he's not wearing that magic suit this time – but he can run like the wind, and he knows London like he drew up the layout of this winding maze of streets himself.

He flies around a corner, up the first level of a fire escape, goes sailing through the air across the chain link fence blocking the alleyway in a leap he misjudges and has to turn into a somersault at the last moment so he doesn't land on his head. He manages to land on his feet instead, rolling to soften the impact, and takes off at a run again with the clanking sounds of them climbing the fence just behind him.

Running like this, concentrating all his energy on not falling over his own feet in his haste, it's impossible to see the contacts in his phone well enough to dial anyone, and – who would he dial anyway? Harry's in fucking Russia dealing with god know what kind of atrocities. He's trying to dial 999 but keeps fumbling and hitting all sorts of numbers on the keypad when there's the sound and burning-rubber smell of locked tyres, a scatter of gravel as a car comes to a halt right in front of him at the corner of the garden square he was planning to cut across. He's running too fast to stop, just manages to fling his arms up to break the impact a bit as he collides with the driver's window, then the back door opens and Harry's friend Lancelot steps out as cool as anything like nothing's wrong, like he's just going to tea with the queen or something and he doesn't have a gun in each hand and a look of extreme irritation on his face.

"How lovely to see you again," he says, sparing Eggsy just the briefest of glances and a flash of a smile before he's striding past him to meet the attackers. "In the car, if you please."

Harry was all flawless grace when he fought, not a single unnecessary move to waste strength and speed as he took down the three men; Lancelot is different, all flamboyant tricks, almost like a dance routine he's made up and proudly wants to show off except _it works_. There's a nifty little move he does, a handspring freeing his legs to wrap around a guy's gun arm to break it, then Lancelot shoots him point blank in the neck as he's yelling in rage and pain but there's no blood, he just collapses there like a sack of shit.

"Tranks," the driver tells Eggsy. She meets his eyes in the rear view mirror and gives him a grin, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel casually, almost bored, like this is something that happens every day. Maybe it is. Fucking unreal. "It'll be a bit of a squeeze in the back there on the way to HQ, I'm afraid."

"Right," Eggsy says faintly, pressing himself up against the window to watch the rest of the fight. The second guy is out cold already, and as he watches Lancelot spins the third, knocks his legs from under him with his foot, and catches him like a ballroom dancer dipping his partner so he can deliver a third and final tranquiliser to the soft uncovered part of his neck. He's barely even sweating, there's not a hair out of place or a speck on his flawlessly tailored tweed suit, not even when he fists his hand in the front of the attacker's combat suit and starts to drag him towards the car.

"Harry had a feeling this might happen," Lancelot says when Eggsy opens the door for him and helps him drag the unconscious man into the back of the cab. "He asked me to keep an eye out for you while he was away. Terribly fond of you, in case you weren't aware."

"Well, yeah." Words don't seem to want to come, millions of them tumbling all over each other in his head but none of them falling into place in a way that makes sense, so he stays silent, helping Lancelot haul the other two men to the cab and fastening seatbelts over the three of them in a row on the back seat – which really feels like a bit too much courtesy considering they were trying to murder Eggsy in the street only two minutes before, but apparently Kingsman agents take the whole gentleman thing fucking overboard.

The people in the street and the square who'd ducked for cover behind trees and cars when they saw all the guns are starting to pop their heads up like nosy meerkats, and somewhere in the distance screaming ever closer is the sound of police sirens. Lancelot raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, mutters _too late, chaps_ , then brightens and claps Eggsy on the shoulder. "Take the front seat. I'll sit in the back in case any of them wake up so I can—" He flicks the safety on one of his guns off and then on again meaningfully. "I'm due to fly out on business tonight so Merlin's going to have to be your babysitter instead, you lucky boy."

The driver starts the engine and speeds away from the approaching police cars, and Eggsy's just about the slide the window open between the front and the back so he can start demanding _what the fuck_ about several billion different points when there's an alarming sort of creaking noise, wet and squishy. In his periphery he sees something, a bulging sort of movement, a brightening light, then before he can even turn and look properly something explodes with enough force to send the car up on its front wheels. For a moment it teeters there on the brink of flipping them slams back down, something smashing underneath with a horrible metallic noise and rattling Eggsy's brain in his skull.

"The fuck was that?" He unclips his seatbelt and twists round to see, but there's gunk and shit all over the partition window blocking his view. "Did someone's fucking _head_ explode?"

"Oh bugger," the driver mutters, fighting out of her own seatbelt and flinging the door open. "Stay there, please."

In seconds she's got a headless body dragged back out of the car and she's diving back in for the next guy. Eggsy ignores being told to stay put and grabs the last attacker from the other side, dumping him in the middle of the road beside the others and racing back to the car when the driver yells at him to get down. The doors slam closed just in time, blocking them from a spray of blood and liquefied brains, hot and sizzling where they slop against the back windshield and start to slowly slide down the glass.

"Don't suppose you've got any medical training?" the driver asks, finding a pair of leather gloves in the door pocket and carefully sliding the gore-stained window open so they can see Lancelot lying on the floor of the cab, still breathing but unconscious and covered in stuff it doesn't bear thinking about.

"Only sprained ankles and shit," Eggsy says weakly. "You deal with the brain soup, I'll drive."

He waits until she's in the back with Lancelot and a first aid box that looks pathetically small and useless for what she needs to mop up, then takes the car off down the street at a pace that's far too fast even for him, ignoring the police yelling at him to stop. His heart's beating a crazy wild rhythm in his chest, painful and lurching, enough to make him feel suddenly sick.

"Hospital?" he calls back.

"St Thomas', there's a train link directly to headquarters for emergencies. Press the red cross button on the dash." When he does, there's a whirring noise from the car ceiling and then the wail of a siren, and in the side mirror he can see the paintwork of the cab suddenly shimmer and fade from black to yellow. Shutters cover the windows, and a large chequered pattern seems to paint itself on the side. "Now we're an ambulance. More or less. R & D are still working on aesthetics."

"What the fuck is this fucking Bond shit, has it got wings and all?"

"Not this model, sadly."

"Fuck," he says again, because what the fuck else is there to say? He stamps down harder on the accelerator, weaving in and out of traffic, and wonders how much Jamal is going to hate him for begging him to look after the dogs again while he sorts out the fuckup that is his life.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know how to summarise this one. There is phone sex and outrageous fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quoted story is from My Secret Life, which is hilarious and awful and well worth a look.

           __

_Harry ur gonna have to explain ur choice of friends_  
           _Merlin_  
           _Explain him_  
           _What's all that about_  
           _??_

Oh good lord, what has he done now?

           _I mean nothing drastic_  
           _Hi btw :) x_  
           _Just he was being all like hush hush spy secrets_

Hello x

           _Gave me this id badge to clip on_  
           _Making out like he was doing me a favour_  
           _'Ur aloud to go in ALL THE PLACES u can swipe into with this badge'_  
           _Harry it swipes into the toilet and the room with the kettle_  
           _That's it_

To be fair to Merlin, you are an outsider in a spy HQ.

           _Knew ud take his side ffs_  
           _Someone's not getting their [banana emoji] sucked tonight_

Well neither are you, I hope, while I'm in Tokyo.

           _:)_  
           _Possessive_

Until you give me further notice, yes.

           _Further notice will arrive at ur address between the hours of never and ever_  
           _Hello??_  
           _U still there_

Apologies, Eggsy, I was talking to Merlin.  
I've asked him to extend your access to the gym and pool.  
At least you'll have something to do other than people's abandoned crosswords.  
My rooms as well. I have Netflix, a minibar, and lovely views of the lake.  
And the library, if you're interested.  
Far right corner, top shelf: some extremely diverting Victorian erotica.  
Illustrated.

           _Harry!!!!!_

Just a tip.  
It's hardly Shakespeare but it passes the time.

           _Lmfao u posh fuckers are all perverts_  
           _But dead casual about it_  
           _Like law books, history, guy getting fucked with a beer bottle, old map books........_

You found it, then.

           _I never run so fast to a place in my life lmao_  
           _This is horrible hahahh I can't stop laughing_  
           _L M A O there's poetry_  
           _Oh my days wtf is this_  
           _Harry I hate u for making me read this with my own two eyes_  
           _Sophy shivered, quivered, but not noisily, and heaved gently;_  
           _her cunt went clip, clip, suck, suck, in a wonderful way towards her crisis,_  
           _and then with a gentle heave of her belly and arse, she seemed as if she wished to get my whole body up her,_  
           _and with an "Ahaa - my dear man - aha, aha," she subsided._  
           _Brb puking_

Not a fan, then.

            
           _I am judging u so hard rn_

Good god, give me warning before you make me look at your face in public.

           _Lol is it that bad_

Bad is not the word for it, no.

           _Where are u_

About to check into my hotel.  
Are you wearing my cardigan?

           _Yeah what u gonna do about it_

Request more photos.

           _:)_  
           _What if I take everything off except the cardi and send u pics_

Jesus Christ.

           _Jesus can't help u now, ur beyond redemption_  
           _Can I FaceTime u?_  
           _PS it won't be my face_

Eggsy, I have never in my life wanted to say yes more desperately than now.  
Alas, evil needs vanquishing first.

           _Ur a hero x_  
           _Sorry about Lancelot :/_  
           _Like sorry he got hurt and sorry u got his work now_  
           _U think he'll be ok?_

I don't know.  
Merlin says we need to have patience, but there's hope.  
I owe him a very great debt for coming to your aid.

           _Yeah he's a good bloke_  
           _Fingers crossed hey_  
           _Ok well take care on ur whatever tf ur doing_  
           _When ur done ring me don't care what time of night_  
           _I won't sleep anyway til I know ur ok_  
           _Promise me u will_

I promise I will.  
Goodnight, Eggsy.

           _Ahem????????_

Goodnight, darling.

           _Better :)_  
           _x_

* * *

Eggsy, are you awake?  
Apparently not.  
Sleep well. I shall try again in the morning.

           _Omg I'm here_  
           _U vibrated me awake ;)_  
           _U ok_

Yes, everything went to plan.

           _What's the time there, u 6 hours in the future?_

Eight hours. It's almost 9am.

           _Bit early in the morning for me to send u a dick pic hey_

No. Send it immediately.

           _Lmao ok hang on let me turn the lamp on_  
           _Nobody needs a flash pic of someone's willy_  
           _Harry I ain't sending u this pic its gross_  
           _Looks like a dead worm_  
           _Say something to make it stand up big and strong ;)_

Bloody hell.  
You can't just make demands like that and expect a man to deliver.

           _Ur shy hahahah_  
           _The great HRH_

I'm not shy.

           _No? ;)_  
           _Tongue tied and bashful aww_  
           _Just tell me if u was here what would u do_  
           _No wait_  
           _Ur a stalker yeah_  
           _Like a total creeper_  
           _U been thinking all sorta weird dirty shit about me for like 3 yrs_  
           _That's what I wanna know ;)_

That is not material suitable for any human eyes.

           _Lmao_  
           _Come on it can't be worse than that shit u made me read earlier_  
           _That woman going AHA like Alan Partridge hahahahah_  
           _Ur shy_  
           _It's ok :P_

I'm not shy.

           _Spit it out then_

Darling, spitting it out is the last thing I would ever want to do if I were there.  
I feel as though my throat is nothing but bruises already. It's still not enough.  
There have been some mornings I could barely talk.  
When I left you yesterday morning I could almost feel your cock in my mouth all through my mission briefing.  
Every time I swallow it's around the memory of you.

           _Harry JEsus fuck_

I want to kneel at your feet until the sun engulfs the world.  
There is nothing I would rather be doing than worshipping you  
And if that involves your fucking my throat to ribbons then all I can do is invent more gods to accept the magnitude of my thanks.

           _Harry jfc_  
           _Pls phone me I can't type fast enough one handed_

 

He stabs the green button with his fingertip a nanosecond after his phone starts ringing and puts it on speaker. "Harry you dirty fuck, that was almost poetry."

"Darling." Harry sounds amused, voice pitched low and almost drawling, lazy and teasing. "Is everything alright?"

"Don't stop. Oh my god I'm gonna come so hard you're gonna think there's a bullet hole in your bedroom wall."

Six thousand miles away, over two continents and two seas, Harry is laughing quietly. "More?"

"More. Give it."

"Very well." There's the sound of a deep breath in and out, the creak of faraway bedsprings. Eggsy's fingers, slick with spit, curl tighter around the impossible hardness of his cock and squeeze and stroke in time. He's trying to visualise Harry, what he might be wearing – nothing? Pyjamas? Full suit and tie, trousers shoved down hastily around his thighs? – but it's all he can do to stay focused on himself. Fantasies slip through his brain like water through a sieve, impossible to hold, until Harry sighs again, cracked and trembling, and the _need to know_ becomes suddenly consuming, a jolting thrill racing through him with the heavy pulse of his blood.

"What are you wearing?"

"A wristwatch and a splash of Ambre Topkapi."

"You are fucking unreal, oh my god." Again Harry laughs, the sound of it fading at the end into a breathy sort of whine, muffled as though he's trying to disguise it. "Hey. Get your hand off your mouth. I wanna hear you come."

"I'm afraid it's going to happen very soon, now you're on the line."

"Good. Me too." He spits in his hand again, slows his stroking to the same lazy up-down rhythm Harry had used on him in the bath the other night, kneeling on the rug fully-clothed with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows while Eggsy writhed and swore and came like fury in the water. "Tell me what else you been thinking. If you could have me any way you wanted."

Harry makes a lazy humming thinking sort of noise. "If I tell you, will you give it to me?"

"If you ask nicely."

"Please," Harry says immediately. He's dropped his voice lower still, a breathy rumbling little plea clearly calculated with sniper-accurate precision to make Eggsy lose his fucking mind. "Darling, _please_."

"Please what?" he stutters.

Harry's barely keeping it together too; Eggsy recognises the fluttering way he breathes when he's close. "You've just come off stage. You're absolutely drenched in sweat, you look obscene. Your costume is sticking to you all over. God, it might as well not be there at all for all the good it does covering the shape of you. I can see everything, every ridge of muscle, every mole and vein of you."

"You on your knees?" Eggsy asks. His voice sounds rough, mouth dry from the whistling rush of his heavy breaths and then suddenly flooding with saliva like a fucking dog when his brain helpfully provides a picture for him, a final jigsaw piece slotting into place to create a masterpiece. "You're kneeling for me, yeah? You been there ages, just waiting."

"Yes," Harry murmurs, shaky and hoarse. "Please."

"How long you been waiting for me?"

"Oh, I don't know, the entire final act at least."

"You gonna take my tights off?"

"Yes," Harry says again, immediate and insistent. "God."

"What then?"

"There's a dressing table. One of those absurd mirrors surrounded by lightbulbs, like something from an old Hollywood film."

"Yeah." He can feel it building in him, the rising roar and surge of heat like a wave at the point of cresting. "You want me to fuck you there with my costume still on? All out of breath and sweating all over your back, yeah? Bend you right over that table so you can watch your own face while I fucking take you apart?"

" _Yes_ ," Harry says again, and the word turns to a lingering hiss in his mouth then a wild choked noise that's part desperate sob, part laughter, part the shuddering thrill of release.

"Fuck, you're gonna get bruises on your hips, love." Eggsy's barely got a clue what he's saying any more, words gasping and tumbling out of his mouth as he strokes himself over the edge. "Gonna smash on the table that hard they'll be purple for days after, then every time you get undressed you'll see it and get hard for me again, ain't that right? You wanna feel me come in you? I'll do it bare. You'll feel it so good, love, gonna be so good for you—" and he spills hard over his knuckles and the sweating skin of his chest, arching off the bed, and more than he's ever wanted anything in the world he wants Harry here right now, the scent of him, his sweat and stupid overpriced cologne, the velvet slide of the shaky way he kisses with too much tongue when he's too shattered from coming to hold back.

"Fuck," Harry says in Japan, and Eggsy agrees, "Fuck," with his arm slung over his eyes and his lungs heaving and burning, coaxing out the last few tremors from his cock with fingers he can barely feel any more. "Harry, pretty sure I done most of the work there."

"You are a marvel," Harry says softly, which as non-sequiturs go is a pretty spectacular one and makes a shiver of delight zap like electricity all over Eggsy's flushed skin. "I'm quite sure I'm dreaming."

"Get back here and I'll pinch you as hard as you like to prove you ain't."

Harry laughs, almost disbelieving still, but his voice is warm with a giddy sort of pleasure when he says, "Go to sleep, darling."

"Wish you was here. Bed's too big without you nicking all the covers."

"I'll be home tomorrow night."

"Good." He feels too exhausted even to wipe himself clean, he just wriggles disgustingly against the sheets until they've blotted away the worst of it and shifts to the other half of the bed and the coolness of the fresh pillow. "Love you, favourite groupie."

There's a long silence before Harry says, quiet and sounding slightly stunned, "I love you too, favourite victim," and somewhere in the wave of laughter that sets off in him Eggsy falls asleep and dreams shit too filthy even for the books in the library.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy's getting serious cabin fever, Arthur's kind of being a dick, Merlin has a potential solution, and Harry is just a continual pervert.

Day six and Kingsman headquarters is starting to feel a little bit like prison, if prison had Michelin-starred chefs cooking all the food and your conjugal visits involved your devastatingly handsome killer boyfriend dropping in every few days for a frantic fumble before flying off across the world again to blow more stuff up. It's getting harder and harder for Eggsy not to take his frustration out on people who probably aren't that happy he's there either, so he's resorted to exhausting himself in the gym to make it clear he's not in the mood to be spoken to: swimming endless laps of the pool, lifting weights, punching bags so ferociously that it makes one of the older agents actually tut like a twittering busybody at a bus stop complaining about the youth of today.

None of it really helps, because none of it's dancing. Nobody gets it.

"I need to get out of here," he demands eventually, fingers clenching hard around the lapels of Harry's suit the moment he steps out of the lift from the plane hangar – where Eggsy's shitty ID badge doesn't allow him to go, obviously, like most of the rest of the gilded cage he's found himself trapped in – and dragging him close for a bruising hard kiss. "I'm losing my fucking rag, I gotta go."

"You know that's not possible." There's blood on Harry's collar, fine specks of it like paint from a spray can. For a moment Eggsy's almost hypnotised by it, staring at the dried flecks and smudges while his mind spins out vague terrifying images of what Harry might have had to do to someone to make it splatter there, but then Harry touches his chin gently, tilts his face up, and there's something warm and lovely in his eyes that makes Eggsy want to shake off this impotent rage and kiss him again the way he deserves, not like an attack. Obviously then Harry has to go and ruin it by talking again. "With Lancelot and Gawain both out of action we—"

"You're busy, yeah, I know, I get it, nobody's got time to babysit." Eggsy turns to stomp up the corridor, his trainers making an unsatisfyingly small amount of noise on the plush burgundy carpet. He wants to slam doors. It's like he's regressed to fourteen in his frustration, and recognising it just makes him even more livid. "It's alright for you lot, pissing off round the world doing all this cool shit you been trained for. I ain't been to class for nearly a week. That's the longest I gone without since I was six. I got all these rehearsals I been missing. And I ain't even got my shoes here or music or nothing, I been trying to practice but I can't do it in Adidas and I don't like it in bare feet and the floor's all wrong and there ain't no mirrors and nobody knows what to look for so they can't even tell me if I'm fucking something up. I wanted to find Merlin and tell him I have to go but I don't even know where he works and I wouldn't be able to get in anyway cos this _fucking_ badge—" He rips it off in a rage, chucks it hard over the edge of the gallery to land silently in the hallway below, and spins round to square up to Harry even though _he knows_ it's not Harry's fault, or anybody's fault, really, except the crazy fucking freaks who keep trying to do him in. "You can't keep me locked up here."

"Eggsy." Harry looks perplexed. "Need I remind you that people are trying to harm you?"

"No you fucking don't need to remind me nothing, I was _there_."

"Then surely you see it from our point of view. Not only is your safety a serious concern, you're our best witness in a global—"

"Fucking scuse me for thinking you wanted more than my statement," Eggsy yells.

For a moment there's silence. Then Harry blinks and takes a breath in, and Eggsy wonders if he's about to be yelled at in return, which would just top off this beautiful blessed day perfectly.

"Darling," Harry says gently instead, because he's a super spy and knows how to defuse bombs of this sort as well as the other. He takes a step forward, cautious as though Eggsy's a snarling dog, and then another more confidently until he's close enough for Eggsy to slump against his chest, pulling helplessly as his lapels again while Harry's fingers rub with a soothing sort of pressure against the nape of Eggsy's neck and up into his hair. "I didn't realise you were so miserable. You've seemed happy enough every time I've been back."

"Yeah, genius, that's cos every time you been back you ended up in my lap without your pants," Eggsy mumbles against Harry's tie. He presses his mouth there, feeling the shape of the little buttons beneath the silk and the steady pace of Harry's breathing, kissing a crooked line up to the non-bloody side of his collar and brushing his lips over the warm thudding skin there when he finds Harry's pulse. "I know you got this mega job and you're saving people's lives and fixing the world and that and mine's just fancy bullshit and it don't even matter, but it does to me."

"Have you not heard a single world I've said to you since we met? Of course it matters." Harry tilts his head, a wordless little murmur of pleasure vibrating his throat against Eggsy's mouth. "Has it really been that long? I've been in so many time zones lately I barely remember what decade we're in."

"Yeah. Doing my fucking nut in." There's a horrifying moment when he thinks he might actually start crying. He's not cried since his first night entrusted with Albrecht, when he and Roxy had tumbled off stage wrapped up in each other's arms and sobbed and giggled for half an hour in elated disbelief until their parents came banging on her dressing room door demanding to be allowed to give congratulations. The burn of it stings high up in his nose, hot and awful, and he sniffs hard against Harry's neck until it eases. "Charlie's dad says he's gonna recast Romeo if I don't go back. Might as well let me die."

"That's suitably melodramatic of you."

"You wanna shut your mouth before I smack you in it?"

Harry twists nimbly away from the fake-punch Eggsy aims at his chin then, smirking, but his face settles back into an expression of thoughtful concern as he draws Eggsy closer with an arm slid casually around his waist and begins to walk him down the corridor. "You'd think he'd be a little more sensitive considering his son is one of the missing."

"Not really. He's a prick. He tolerates me now cos I get good reviews but he still acts on like I'm this social-climbing pleb leeching off Charlie." They turn a corner, pass through a door that had refused to open for Eggsy's swipe card when he tried it but beeps happily and allows them through when Harry looks into the iris scanner. "Where we going?"

"To bother Merlin," Harry tells him with far too much badly-concealed mischief in his voice and the sideways slant of his eyes. He hugs Eggsy slightly closer to his side as they walk, fingers curling possessively around the curve of his waist, and for the first time in days Eggsy's glad to be exactly where he is.

Merlin's office is at the end of a long corridor full of open doors and people bustling in and out of rooms with intriguing bits of equipment and folders of mysterious paperwork stamped 'classified'. It's empty when Harry leads him inside, so he feels less of a compulsion to be polite and lets his curiosity take him over, wandering around the room nosying at everything in a way he knows he wouldn't dare to if Merlin were there. It's a room like the library, all polished wood panelling and magnificent antique furniture, but there's a tangle of cables connecting all sorts of computers and other gadgets, and one wall is taken up with a bank of monitors showing CCTV and satellite footage of various places around headquarters and around the world. As Eggsy watches one, trying to remember which Mission Impossible film the place got blown up in, something explodes on the screen and startles a sharp _fucking hell_ out of him as he stumbles back and collides with Harry.

"There'll be some nasty paperwork to explain that one," Harry says in his ear, casually like he's talking about something as boring and innocuous as the weather, but he's sliding his arms around Eggsy's waist from behind and encouraging him to move back further still until they're fitted so closely together that Eggsy can feel the press of Harry's chest against his shoulder blades every time one of them breathes in. "Bedivere's something of an arsonist, I'm afraid, but it's difficult to stamp down on someone's single fault when they're so tremendous at everything else."

"Like your fondness for trespassing, Galahad?" someone says behind them, and the only reason it doesn't make Eggsy jump a mile again is because Harry's arms are still clutching him tightly around the middle, Harry's chin is tucked on his shoulder pressing their cheeks together in a way that's forcing all the hairs on his arms want to stand up, warm and thrilling and _safe_.

"Not at all," Harry says, finally releasing Eggsy and turning round to greet Merlin, who looks extremely unimpressed, one eyebrow raised high, holding up a mug of tea like he's considering the pros and cons of hitting Harry in the head with it. "I have at least three faults in addition to that one."

"Well, you're not wrong there." Merlin flaps a sheaf of papers he holding at Harry and Eggsy until they stand aside and let him circle his desk to get to his chair. "Eggsy."

"Hey."

"Fairly sure I didn't set your pass to let you in this wing."

"Nah, guv, I got friends in high places."

"So it would seem." Another irritable look at Harry, then Merlin slides his papers into a folder and rolls back on his chair to stack it with some others on a bookshelf. "Can I help you? Can anybody _else_ help you?"

"My question exactly. May we sit down?" Merlin makes a disgruntled sort of 'go ahead' gesture with his hand at the single chair in front of his desk. For a weird and slightly horrifying moment Eggsy wonders whether he's going to have to sit on Harry's lap, or Harry's going to have to sit on his, neither of which he imagines will improve Merlin's mood very much, but instead Harry directs him to the chair and then perches on the arm of it in a way that would probably look awkward and uncomfortable as fuck if anyone else tried it. When it's Harry, it's cool old-Hollywood grace, like a model posed for a photograph. "I'd appreciate your help in finding Eggsy a new bodyguard so he can go back to work and get out of your hair. So to speak," he adds innocently, stealing Merlin's mug and taking a sip of his tea.

Merlin snatches it back and curls his other hand around it possessively. "Eggsy, would you wait outside, please? I need to have a private conversation with Harry."

"Nonsense." Eggsy hadn't made a move to get up but he feels Harry's hand on his arm anyway, fingers resting lightly against his wrist. "Let him stay. It's his life, after all."

"Fine," Merlin says tersely. "I had orders to entirely wipe you, this organisation, and the attacks from Eggsy's memory, take him home, and leave the police to worry about his safety since we've got all the information from him that we could. I didn't think you'd be too pleased about that arrangement, but since we couldn't discuss it while you were on mission I thought it best to argue Arthur into a compromise. Keeping Eggsy here under supervision was the best I could do. I've negotiated the release of a hundred hostages in less time than it took me to talk Arthur around, by the way, so if you could at least keep your hands off my tea if you're not going to thank me that would be wonderful."

"Oh," Eggsy says stupidly. Harry's silent, but his fingers have tightened around Eggsy's wrist, not enough to be painful but enough to make him look up at Harry: the sudden tightness in the clench of his jaw and a dangerous sort of fury in his eyes before he controls himself and slips back into his usual expression of indifference. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Harry says grandly, somehow making it sound like he's the one doing the favour. Merlin glares at him a moment longer and takes a deliberate drink from his mug before he turns to one of his monitors and starts tapping away at the keyboard.

"You're welcome to re-negotiate the terms with him yourself, of course. Eggsy, I'm sorry you're bored. I would have explained sooner but Arthur only decided to leave your head alone this afternoon."

"Yeah. No. It's alright." _Bored_ sounds like a bit of a petty ridiculous thing to complain about suddenly, under the circumstances. Even the idea of a load of soloists being promoted to principals to replace him and Roxy and Charlie seems sort of less gutting when he thinks of the alternative: rehearsing with Charlie's partner Sophie instead of with Roxy like usual, learning the way each other move, lifting her soaring into the air on stage while the audience watches rapt in held-breath wonder, taking their bows at the end to the roar of applause, and never knowing there's something huge missing. Laughing again at his unknown secret admirer who keeps sending roses to his dressing room, or not getting any roses at all and carrying on with his life as though that's normal while somewhere else in the world a man he doesn't know is being shot at and blown up. "You think he's gonna change his mind? Cos..." He can't think of the right words and shuts up for a moment. He's desperate to look at Harry for some sort of comfort or encouragement, but doesn't because he's not sure he'll be able to keep controlling the way his face wants to twist if he does. "I don't wanna forget. Any of it."

Harry's grip slides gently down Eggsy's wrist to his hand, winding their fingers together, and Merlin looks like he's trying to pretend he hasn't noticed. "I don't think you'd have much to worry about if he did. Harry's never been a great fan of obeying orders he doesn't like the sound of."

"Yeah, I kinda noticed." Eggsy glances up at Harry finally, who looks delighted with his friend's assessment of him, beaming like a praised toddler, then asks, "What if he's away doing his Bond shit and Arthur decides he's gonna flashy thing me after all?"

"Pessimistic little bugger, aren't you?"

" _Realist_ ," Eggsy says firmly, and Merlin finally cracks a tiny smile, though he tries to hide it by turning back to his computer and typing rapidly.

"Could put you on the payroll," he suggests. He hits a key and there's the whirr of machinery, several sheets of paper rolling out of the printer behind him: the Kingsman logo at the top and a load of tiny print and blank lines and boxes. "Pages one and two are the application form," Merlin says, sliding the stack of paper over the desk. "Pages three to nine are the consequences of blabbing, which I recommend you read carefully and never forget. Arthur's a great believer in a man's word being his bond, so once you're sworn in there'll be no more talk of wiping your memory and chucking you back out in the world to fend for yourself. If, of course, it's a solution you're interested in."

"Do I get a code name?"

Merlin looks for a moment like he wants to take the application back. "No."

"Do I get a gun?"

"Negotiable." Eggsy wasn't expecting that answer, gaze flickering between Merlin and Harry looking for signs of mockery until Merlin continues, "Listen, everybody from Arthur to the lad who delivers sandwiches on his pushbike is capable of defending themselves and others if necessary. If you're going to work here, even if it's mostly a front, you'll need to be on a level with everyone else. A full physical and psychological evaluation is obligatory as part of the screening process, followed by a week of basic training in weapons and hand to hand combat which you're subsequently required to keep up to scratch yourself. Spot checks happen. Anyone who can't pull their weight is retrained or dismissed. So yes, you might be allowed to carry a gun, unless your trainer finds you're more suited to knives."

"Are you taking the fucking piss?"

Merlin stares at him.

"Sir," Eggsy adds quickly.

"Out. Read that through, sleep on it, and bring me the form in the morning so I can sign it off." Then: "Harry," Merlin says as they're heading to the door.

"Yes?"

There's a smirk in his voice, glinting in his eyes as well even though it's not showing on his mouth. "Do you remember the record you set during agent training for the fastest completion of the obstacle course?"

"Yes," Harry says, slowly, suspiciously. Merlin's ghost smirk finally blooms on his mouth as he raises his hand and points at Eggsy.

"He broke it. Not the first time, I think the first time was to get his bearings, but as soon as he'd finished he did it again and, oh no, there was your record, obliterated on the floor. I suppose it must be true about ballet dancers being as fit as Olympic athletes."

"You were watching that?" Eggsy blurts, vague memories surfacing of digging for a really vicious itch in his arse crack at the top of the climbing wall because he'd thought he was alone.

"I've got eyes everywhere." That sounds pretty ominous considering how many places around the house Harry's backed Eggsy up against a wall to kiss him senseless, so he grabs Harry's hand and escapes before anyone can comment further.

* * *

Back in Harry's room, Eggsy flops down across the bed on his front to start reading through the application and threats. He can hear Harry moving about, the gentle creak of old floorboards, then there's the dip of the mattress and grasping fingers on his ankle as Harry eases off his trainers and socks for him.

"Hey, what job am I even applying for?"

"I don't know. Leave that part blank, let Merlin fill it in."

"But I can still go to class now, right? And rehearsals?"

"Yes, once we find someone to look out for you while I'm not here. It sounds as though it's more of a secrecy precaution than anything. I'm sure you won't be required to do anything much."

"Cool." He turns the page to scan the back, going up on his knees briefly to let Harry tug his trackies down. "Oi. Pants too."

"Of course. Which pyjamas, paisley or plaid?"

"Why bother, you'll just rip 'em off again soon as we turn the lights out."

"Are you going to stop reading, then? I shan't be able to keep my hands to myself if your pants come off and no pyjamas go on."

"Sex pest." Eggsy wriggles insistently until he feels Harry's fingertips slide into the waistband, stretching the elastic over the curve of his arse and down his thighs, past his knees one at a time as he shifts his weight from one to the other, and then over his feet and off. He settles there against the covers, naked from the waist down, a flare of strangely nervous excitement sparking up his spine as though Harry undressing him with the promise of more is something that hasn't happened every time they've been together since that first night after the fundraiser. "You wanna..." His voice dies abruptly in his mouth when Harry presses a kiss to his arse cheek, fumbling back to life as a breathy laughing sort of moan. "Never mind, yeah. Carry on."

Harry bites him gently, and all the papers flutter off the side of the bed to land haphazardly on the carpet when Eggsy has to grab at a pillow instead, like that's going to be enough of an anchor to stop him from rocketing out into space. "I don't know what you're looking so hopeful for," Harry says against his skin when Eggsy twists round to glance over his shoulder, trying to see what he's doing. "I'm not licking the business part unless you wash it."

"Well ain't you a fucking romantic poet." Harry hums a quiet little laugh, sets his teeth there again, right on the sensitive place where the curve straightens out at the top of Eggsy's thigh, and bites down harder. " _Fffuck_."

"Continue or stop?" Harry murmurs. The faint stubble on his chin traces a path to Eggsy's other cheek, giving him some idea of where the next bite is going to fall but not how hard it's going to be: it's not vicious enough to be painful, but it's _sharp_ and then hot, Harry's tongue soothing the bite marks with a lingering, sucking kiss.

"Continue." He's trying not to laugh, he doesn't want it to sound like he's finding anything funny or weird when really all he's feeling is blistering heat and the giddy sort of elation he can't get enough of whenever Harry's close by. "What happened to you wanna be on your knees forever letting me fuck you in the throat?"

The next time Harry bites he holds there, pinching and gloriously sore, tracing his tongue around the caught bit of flesh until Eggsy's whining pleas into the pillow. "You broke my record."

This time Eggsy lets the laughter free, feeling it shake through him right down to Harry's teeth. "And what, you gonna reassert your top dog status on my poor arse?"

Harry finally releases him, dipping his tongue into the tender circle of teeth marks he's left behind. Eggsy, looking back over his shoulder, can only see the top of Harry's head, until Harry suddenly glances up and does that heartmelting smile of his, all crinkled eyes and fathomless dimples. "Something like that."

"Bollocks," Eggsy says, grinning like a total fool as he scrambles awkwardly from his front onto his back and starts palming the insistent heaviness of his cock to hardness. "Sit on this and reassert it there."

"Now who's the romantic poet?" Harry grumbles, smile disappearing, but Eggsy's pretty sure he's never seen him undress so quickly, flashing through his fly buttons as though he's opening them by magic and whipping off his trousers like a stripper, ransacking the cabinet drawer for the bottle and condoms and only slowing in his movement once he's thrown them onto the bed beside Eggsy's shoulder. Hesitantly, he asks, "Bare?" and Eggsy's heart lurches hard in his chest, his cock strains harder still in his hand, and his entire breath leaves him in a staggering whoosh of _yes oh my god please_. When they're ready, when Harry straddles him and slowly starts to sink down, opening up so beautifully around him with his hair falling over his forehead and pink in his cheeks, Eggsy closes his hands hard around Harry's hips and ends up leaving bruises there to match the ones Harry bit into his backside. He tilts him into a rhythm, slow, running his eyes everywhere like the lingering trail of reverent fingers: Harry's thighs, the quivering shift of muscles there as he moves; the burst of sweat that starts to gleam over his skin; neat little black stitches holding a new injury closed in the bit of chest between his collarbone and the half-buttoned shirt he's not bothered taking off; Harry's hand curled around his cock to stroke and twist; and his cock, flushed and glorious, glistening at the tip already and wetting his fingers on every lazy, steady stroke up and down. When he starts to tremble, when his breath goes unsteady and desperate, he takes one of Eggsy's hands from its place on his hip and brings it to his mouth, kissing frantically over his palm and knuckles, and the way he slides two fingers into his mouth and begins to suck, wet and clumsy, feels like a direct line to Eggsy's cock, like pins in a voodoo doll. He comes shaking and swearing, arching up off the bed, so that when Harry follows moments later his release lands over Eggsy's chest. There's an imaginary sort of heat to it, as though it's sizzling through his vest and into his skin like a brand, doubled when Harry slides his fingers through the mess he's made and, with his eyes closed and that lovely stupid grin back on his face, traces a wet crooked heart there in the cotton over the beat of Eggsy's own.

"Don't leave," Eggsy murmurs against Harry's neck when he can figure out the shape of words again. "Let the world burn. Fuck it."

"You don't mean that." Harry helps him sit up, peeling the stained vest off over his head while Eggsy unfastens the buttons and rids Harry of his shirt.

"Nope." A long, slow, lazy, amazing kiss later, Eggsy says against Harry's mouth, "If I did, what would you do?"

"Tell you no, as I expect you'd have done if I'd asked you not to go back to rehearsals."

"Too right." He kisses down Harry's neck, shoving gently on his shoulder until Harry's on his back and then extending the line down until he's hovering over the new stitches. "What happened here?"

"A speck of shrapnel. It's nothing serious."

"Mmhm." He's seen every scar Harry's got, mapped them with his mouth and eyes and curious fingers, but never felt close enough to ask him about them until tonight. Something feels as though it's settled somehow, like the glitter in the snow globe of their whirlwind romance is finally coating the ground and leaving the dome clear enough to see through. "What about here?"

"My first mission," Harry says as Eggsy's tracing his tongue over the winding line of white scar tissue just above his elbow. "Foiled the assassination of Margaret Thatcher."

"Reckon there's a few more people who'd like to stab you for that one." There's another scar at Harry's side, a bumpy, shiny cluster the size of a fist. "Here?"

"Exit wound. There's a smaller one in the back where the bullet entered."

"Thought you got bulletproof suits."

"Yes. This is an illustration of why we leave all the prancing about in speedos to James Bond."

Eggsy takes a moment to properly appreciate the visual of Harry _prancing about in speedos_ , although not the getting shot in the back part, and traces his tongue across the ridges of Harry's abs to another white scar slashed diagonally into his abdomen. "This one?"

"Ah," Harry says, in the slightly taunting tone of a man about to tell a thrilling story. "That one was terrible. I was on a table surrounded by people hiding their faces behind masks. One of them, the ringleader, sliced right into me with a knife, held me open, and ripped out part of my guts."

"Holy fuck!"

"That's an appendectomy scar."

"Wanker, you had me going." Eggsy bites him beside the scar hard enough that the bruise doesn't fade for days, kisses it better, then wriggles about until he's comfortable there halfway down the mattress with his head pillowed on Harry's stomach. "You think they're ever gonna stop sending goons to kill me?"

Harry's quiet for a while, stroking his fingers gently through Eggsy's sweaty hair. "I don't think they're trying to kill you. I think they're still trying to kidnap you. We've reviewed Lancelot's glasses footage from before their heads blew up and they didn't appear to have any weapons, only ropes and needles, presumably some kind of tranquiliser."

It's not that much of a comfort, really, except for the reaffirmed suggestion that the others are still alive somewhere. "Yeah, and what about them blowy up heads, what the fuck's all that about?"

"Beats me. I'll speak with Merlin tomorrow and see if he's made any progress."

"And Valentine and his bodyguard?"

"Vanished off the face of the earth, it seems. They've not been present at any Valentine Corp public events since the night you escaped. They must know someone's onto them."

"Maybe they'll panic and make some dumb mistake and you'll get 'em."

"Or maybe they'll panic and speed up whatever their plans are," Harry says grimly. He looks tired and annoyed, lines creasing his forehead and mouth turned down. Eggsy reaches up and pokes him there, fingertips tapping insistently at one corner of Harry's lips until he can't resist and breaks out into that brilliant smile again, all dimples and teeth and adoring, shining eyes as he gazes down the length of his body to where Eggsy's resting and resumes the steady stroking of his hair.

"So what you gonna do?"

"Oh, I don't know. Whatever I do I'm sure it'll be sensible and measured with very little risk to my life and absolutely no showing off."

"Yeah," Eggsy scoffs, eyebrows raised as high as Merlin's, " _right_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy's as good as Baryshnikov because it's my story and I say so. [Here's Albrecht and Giselle](http://youtu.be/XOAFsU2kWPw?t=6m39s).


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No plot. No redeeming literary value. Just Eggsy in his ballet class and Harry forgetting his manners.
> 
> (This was supposed to go with some actual plot, but that would have meant TWO SEX SCENES in one chapter which seems a bit overkill - the rest to follow soon!)

Harry's banned from the rehearsal studio. He kicks up a fuss about it, of course – _perhaps you've not had it explained to you that the main function of a bodyguard is to guard your body_ – but Eggsy stands his ground. It's going to be difficult enough getting back into the swing of a class after a week of muddling through on his own, never mind having to put up with Harry there _gazing_ at him with that gorgeous idiot moony look on his face as well.

"You ain't watching. I need to concentrate. If I spring a hard-on in these tights I'm never gonna live it down," he insists, even though he can't resist going up on tiptoe and winding his arms round Harry's neck for a last lingering hug, pressing a snuffly little line of kisses to his freshly-shaved jaw. Someone passing them in the hallway wolf-whistles, someone else laughs, and Eggsy raises his middle finger over his shoulder at them without bothering to turn round and see who's doing it. He's got more important things to focus on right now, after all, because Harry smells incredible: soap, coffee, every complex note of that appallingly expensive cologne he favours, the first mellow tang of sweat as he tilts his head under Eggsy's exploring mouth and _sighs_ , blissful and quiet.

"The longer you do this, the more likely I am to throw you over my shoulder and carry you home before you can even set foot in that room."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try." Actually, he kind of would, but that's a fantasy for another day. A final kiss and he makes himself move back, flattening his hands against Harry's pinstriped lapels and pushing gently until Harry grins and takes a reluctant step away from him. "Hour and a half. I'll let you take me out for lunch somewhere nice after, yeah?"

"Generous of you." He's doing that devastating smile with the teeth and the dimples and the crinkly crows' feet, and there's an errant bit of hair curling over his forehead, slick with product but misbehaving, tumbling out of line. It looks obscenely rude somehow, just one little bit of untidiness topping off the perfection that is Harry in a suit, and Eggsy turns quickly and heads into the studio before he gives in to the urge to fling himself at Harry again and mess the rest of him up to match.

It's good to get back to work: the steady repetitive motion of pliés and battements is like meditation, almost hypnosis, so that when it's time to turn at the barre and work the opposite way he looks up and grins at Roxy like always, forgetting she's not there. She's as much a part of all this as the mirrors and piano and his favourite old ragged red practice tights, but she's _not there_ when she should be. For a moment it's disorienting, and he stills for a few beats with both hands clutching at the barre, breathing slowly to right himself, then a glare from the teacher gets him moving again and he tries to focus, put everything out of his mind except the music and the stretch of muscles. Not like there's much he can do about it, after all.

Still, despite his best efforts, an hour and a half later he's managed to get himself thoroughly mired in misery as well as exhausted from his first proper workout in ages. He's more than ready for another hug – because Harry's _so good_ at them, clinging and warm and so broad in the shoulders it's like he's coming at it from every angle at once – but he's sweating like hell and probably stinks, so probably best not to just march out there and rub himself all over Harry's expensive bespoke suit, really. Instead he hangs back and waits for the crowd to leave before he follows them out, and finds Harry waiting there in the corridor, casually (deliberately) leaning against the wall like some kind of fashion model slash extremely well-dressed rent boy. He's probably got the best poker face in the world when he tries, but he's not even bothering: his eyes track the full length of Eggsy's body, head to feet and back again, lingering at all the obvious places. There's something ravenous in his eyes and Eggsy wants to laugh suddenly, giddy with adoration for this brazen idiot stalker he's somehow managed to get himself tangled up with.

"You look like you never seen me sweating out my arse through a pair of tights before."

"Never this close," Harry reminds him. His eyes catch again on the undisguised goods Eggsy's t-shirt isn't long enough to cover and his mouth twitches into a smile, almost a smirk, crooked and filthy. "You have no idea how deplorable my thoughts are, seeing you like this."

"Reckon I got a pretty good idea, yeah." Screw the suit, Eggsy decides, and backs Harry up against the staircase balustrade to kiss him properly, arms sliding languidly around his neck and sweat smearing _everywhere_. Harry's a disgraceful pervert, there's no way he'll complain. He'll probably welcome it. Probably fold his jacket up in a giant plastic ziplock to keep the sweat fresh and file it away to sniff on lonely nights.

"What are you laughing for?" Harry says, or tries to say, muffled in Eggsy's mouth. Eggsy just shakes his head, clings on harder, dripping chest and soaking armpits pressed disgustingly, wonderfully, against Harry's suit as he stumbles them around a corner to an empty bit of corridor where they're not going to get catcalled or shouted at.

"Nothing," he says, even though he's shaking with it. He stills under the pressure of Harry's hand sliding down the length of his spine, over drenched cotton to the damp warm cling of his tights, and surges up on tiptoe against him until Harry makes a dazzled little noise in his throat and curves his other arm around Eggsy's body to join the other, huge incredible hands spread wide over Eggsy's arse to press him closer still. "We actually gonna do this?"

"I have absolutely no idea what you mean," Harry mumbles against his skin, tongue dipping out to trace a line to Eggsy's jaw, down his neck, around the front to lap at the sweat in the hollow between his collarbones.

"I'm pretty heavy. You gonna catch me if I jump?"

"Always." His palms slide lower, cupping the underside of Eggsy's arse and urging him up – holding him there, safe and steady, when Eggsy's legs go around his waist. "Can you be quiet, do you think?"

"Nope." He glides his damp jaw against Harry's temple, wriggles and turns his head sideways so the sweaty mess of his hair lands right on Harry's neat parting, scratching down to flick wetly against his forehead. "Can you?"

"No."

Eggsy's breath leaves him in a shocked, desperate little gasp when Harry smacks him up against the opposite wall of the corridor, shifts his grip on Eggsy's backside, and rocks against him. He's gorgeously hard behind the fly of his trousers already, thick and hot, pressing up hard against Eggsy's tights. Eggsy can't exactly feel much behind the horrible constricting prison of his dance belt but it's alright, he doesn't care, nothing matters except the ferocious filthy rhythm of Harry's hips jolting forward, the rough slide of his cock, the way his breathing hitches when he feels Eggsy's legs tighten around his waist to urge him on. "Do it," Eggsy murmurs against his ear, hushed words and panting nonsense pleas tripping out of his mouth so rapidly he barely even hears what he's saying. "That's it, yeah, come on, love, right there. You wanna fuck me? You wouldn't even have to take my tights off, babe, just rip the seam and fucking go for it. Just"—he wriggles in Harry's arms, trying to match the wobbly rhythm, grinding down hard on Harry's cock—" _yes_ , Harry. Just get that fucking beautiful cock out your fly, love, you wanna fuck me right here up against this wall with your nice suit still on? Give it me, yeah, do it hard, fuck me til I'm fucking crying."

" _Fffuck_ ," Harry gasps, and Eggsy can feel him coming like there's not layers of fabric between them: the stuttering snap of his hips, the thrumming muscles in his arms, all the places on Eggsy's flushed face where Harry presses his lips, too wet and clumsy to be counted as kisses.

"Fuck," Eggsy agrees, slightly stunned, staring at him, devouring every minute shift of expression on Harry's ridiculous blissed-out face. "That was quick."

"Quiet. I've had several years of exhausting daydreams about these filthy tights, surely that counts for something." He sounds too shocked to be embarrassed, biting gently at Eggsy's lower lip until Eggsy's laughing again, he can't help it – because this is the dream, isn't it? There's fucking nutjobs trying to steal him like a diamond in a heist film and his best mates are missing, but he's pretty sure this is love, like the dumb amazing old Hollywood Technicolor sound stage sort of love you never get in real life. Also he just got banged against a wall poster about pilates.

"Put me down." Harry does, grumbling, but he settles when Eggsy's arms creep up around his neck again. "Licking my sweat off me, you fucking dirty old man."

"Do you want me to apologise?"

"Nope." He dances his first two fingertips down the length of Harry's arm, finds his hand, and directs it up his t-shirt, into the front of his damp red tights. "If you can get my hilarious undies off without laughing there's plenty more you can get your tongue on down here."


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy settles into his part-time job, kind of makes a friend, endures some dirty talk from the other side of the world, and maybe there's finally a scrap of plot.

Harry u awake?  
Or fighting baddies idk what time zone ur in or nothing  
Hope ur ok  
My head feels weird  
I'm ok just I seen something and its kinda freaking me out  
Ping me when u get this  
Xx 

Lmfao Merlin just come and told me off for watching netflix on duty  
Bossy fucker aint he  
I can multi task  
I can pause it when someone's actually here  
There aint nobody here  
Fuck I'm bored 

I forgot to say what my amazing new job is  
What I had to learn all them knife skills and shit for  
And how to shoot and that  
U ready  
Brace urself cos it's pretty intense  
I am a receptionist lmao I got a name badge and everything  
Hi my name is Eggsy happy to help lmfao  
I have to sign people in and out the gym  
And be like Gawain u aint going in the pool without a veruca sock u minger  
Bedivere ur gunshots still bleeding u aint lifting weights ffs  
Bob from accounts lost his locker key earlier  
Chaos  
So exciting 

I miss u x 

4 hour shift and just finished 1 hour  
Why's time going so slow  
I mean shouldn't complain really aint like I'm getting shot at or nothing like u  
Hope ur ok x 

Harry I love u xx

Merlin just brought me a sandwich he's the best  
Omg its such a good sandwich fuck me  
That sounded weird don't fuck me with a sandwich  
Turkey and a pile of salad and tiny bit of cranberry sauce  
Feels like Christmas  
All I want for Christmas is yoooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu 

If ur asleep hope ur having nice dreams  
And if ur working hope ur kicking someone's arse who deserves it 

Hour 2 in the can go me  
U know this is the first job I ever had??  
First real job I mean  
And yeah I know it aint even a real job its a do nothing job so I can stay here  
I got lucky  
Most people don't  
School then corps then promotions now living the dream professional show off :*  
Never had to get even a paper round or nothing cos my dads payout was enough  
I been feeling like I should say thanks but idk to who  
Gonna go and visit Lancelot I think before bed so that's a start  
I mean he won't know cos coma but I will know  
Feels important  
He probably saved my life and idk how to pay that back 

Uuugh 9pm 1 hour left then I can escape 

Anyway guess ur busy or sleeping or whatever  
Sorry for the 17 billion texts hahah 

I seen my dads picture on the wall that's what I meant earlier  
When I said I felt weird  
I was coming down here and seen him in the corridor in this glass case  
Plaque saying fallen friends and all these photos  
Feels less weird now I think  
Just was a surprise  
Like I never expected it u know?  
It's nice I mean like in a weird way but still nice  
Like he weren't even an agent or nothing but he still gets a memorial  
Same age as me now when he died  
Messed my head up a bit thinking about that  
Lmao imagine me having a 5 year old kid hahah my parents are heroes 

Ok someone's taking over now for the graveyard shift  
Come home safe yeah x  
If u get back to hq tonight I will be in ur bed til 6am  
Sniffing ur pillow like a freak  
I fuckin KNOW u do that to mine when I get up before u  
Ur so gross u belong in jail or maybe a zoo or a skip  
Love u night night xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

* * *

Eggsy hears quiet footsteps coming up behind him, and for a moment he considers putting some of his (very) basic defence training to use, maybe spin around to confront whoever it is and try to disarm them in case it's another ridiculous surprise roleplay scenario Merlin's dreamed up to test him, but he's so tired and also he just accidentally caught Percival's eye in the dark glass of a window as they were turning a corner and it would feel excruciatingly silly.

"Alright?" he says instead, slowing just slightly so Percival falls into step beside him instead.

"Alright," Percival replies. "Yourself?"

"Alright. Tired. Should be in bed by now but I gotta earn my keep, hey."

"Are you lost? Your rooms are back that way."

"No, I know. I was gonna go and sit with Lancelot for a bit. Like, pay my respects or whatever's the phrase that don't make him sound like a corpse."

Percival makes a noise that would almost be a sardonic laugh if it sounded slightly less strangled. "He won't die halfway through a mystery. He couldn't bear to, nosy bastard. Always needs to know everybody else's business."

"Yeah, well, he's a spy, ain't that standard? Bet you ain't all that different."

"I'm nothing like that idiot." It's hard to tell whether he's joking or actually offended; his face never gives much away. "James is a square peg in a world of round holes. I expect that's why he gets on so well with Harry."

Probably not the right time or mood to call him out on how weirdly dirty that sounded. "James," Eggsy repeats instead, "that's his real name? Huh." It doesn't seem to fit him very well after having become so used to _Lancelot_ \- heroic almost to the point of caricature like someone Errol Flynn might have played in a hammy old adventure film. "So what's yours?"

"Arthur. You can probably imagine how much our esteemed leader enjoys that. His name is Chester."

"What's Merlin's?"

"A mystery. Seems safest to assume he was born Merlin and he'll die Merlin." By now they're at the doors to the hospital wing, and Percival - Arthur now or still Percival? - holds the door open so Eggsy can go in ahead of him.

"You visiting too?"

Percival holds up the bag he's carrying, a pristine leather case with the Kingsman logo embossed all over, identical to the one Harry keeps all his prissy bathroom potions in when he's travelling. "I'm on barber duty. We have a sort of arrangement. Head injuries and comas are no excuse for not looking one's best."

What the fuck are you even meant to say to that? Eggsy keeps his mouth shut, just takes a seat beside Lancelot's bed and watches Percival unpack his shaving things onto the table - proper shaving things like Harry's, the little brush and Sweeney Todd razor and the leather strap for keeping the blade right. Eggsy feels gross and stubbly just looking at it all, suddenly weirdly ashamed of his safety razors and the smear of pink rash he'd dragged onto on a sensitive bit of his jaw that morning, then he accidentally imagines Harry's long fingers tilting his head back and scraping a straight razor up his neck for him, and feels a slow, roaring hot shudder of goosebumps prickle out across his skin. He stares hard at Lancelot's handsome, peaceful face to get himself over it, at Percival's hands pressing a hot flannel he fetched from the break room to his skin, at the beeping whirring machines in the room and the slightly wilting handful of flowers standing in a mug behind all of Percival's paraphernalia. Wonders who picked them and brought them up here.

"Handlebar or Abraham Lincoln?" Percival asks as he hooks the strop around a bedpost and starts to run the blade over and over against its taut length.

Eggsy says, "What?" to that and then feels stupid because he heard it perfectly clearly.

"He gave me the most abysmal goatee last time I was out. I looked like a stage magician."

"Lincoln, then. Or like that guy off the razor ad. Do him a monkey tail." He gestures on his own face, drawing a swooping line with his fingertips and feeling the itchy prickle of stubble. "Lincoln down this side and over his chin then bring it up round his mouth and turn it into a tache."

"I think you'll fit in very well here," Percival tells him, sounding pleased, and gets to work.

* * *

Half an hour and at least sixty future blackmail photos later, Eggsy's finally on his way to bed when his phone starts ringing. It's the Bond theme, jangling far too loudly in the late-night silence of the HQ corridors, and he snatches it out of his pocket quickly and jabs the answer button, just as desperate to shut it up as he is to speak to Harry. "Hey," he says quietly, lingering by the nearest window seat just for the simple pleasure of being able to take the effort involved in walking and turn it towards listening to Harry breathe instead.

"Good evening," Harry says from South Africa or Thailand or wherever the hell he is tonight.

"Is now."

"I love you too."

He has to sit down after that. Doesn't matter how many times he hears it, he still feels a bit wobbly and giddy every time, like he wants to giggle and hide his face. Pathetic, really, but apparently that's who he is now and it seems like a waste of energy to resist when he could fold himself up on the cushions and rest his head against the coolness of the glass and just wait, breathless, for more.

"I'd forgotten that photograph was there," Harry goes on, sounding rueful. "I apologise. I would have shown you at once had I remembered."

"It's alright. I know more about him from what you've told me than I ever known in my whole life." Lying in bed, muffling laughter into the pillow at Harry's bewildered face as he recalled being given a Spice Girls album for Secret Santa and thinking it was Merlin's idea of a joke until Lee cracked up at him wandering round HQ in a rage because he couldn't get the chorus of _Wannabe_ out of his head. Eggsy's beloved Irish Setter, Captain Pugwash, whom he'd always thought was a cheer-up gift from his mum after his dad died but was really a half-trained spy dog Lee had named Lord Woofington of Barkshire in protest at finding out Harry had called his own puppy Mr Pickle. How well his Marine training had prepared him for Kingsman - his fearlessness at being told to throw himself out of a plane; the way he could shoot as though the guns were extensions of his limbs; how he saw everything and remembered everything, storing every detail in some incomprehensible mental filing system that only he knew how to navigate so he could find them in a split second and use them at the perfect time. How he'd trained himself to sleep on his right side when he usually favoured his left because that way the framed photo of Michelle and Eggsy on his bedside table would be the last thing he saw every night and the first thing he saw in the morning.

"I wish I had more to tell you. I didn't know him very long, nor very well. Well enough to know how proud he was of you. And how slowly he'd castrate me for defiling you if he were here today," Harry adds, sounding far less concerned about such a fate than his words suggest. 

"Shut up," Eggsy tells him. "I defile _you_."

A million miles away, Harry's exhale gets stuck for a moment in his mouth and comes out shaky. "And a tremendous job you do, too."

"Thanks."

"My pleasure." The briefest of pauses, then Harry's voice drops a tone lower, grows a shade warmer. "Are you in bed?" he murmurs.

"Not yet, I just sat down to talk. Gonna go now."

"I love the thought of you in my bed."

"Greedy. Gonna keep me there all for yourself."

"Yes," Harry says immediately, "darling, yes."

"Where are you?"

"New Zealand."

Eggsy cups his hand over his mouth and the phone, lowering his voice to barely more than a whisper and hoping Percival isn't lurking about anywhere. "So say you magically got back tonight and found me waiting. What would you do?"

It's almost ten minutes later, somewhere in the middle of an unnecessarily detailed description of exactly where Harry wants to slide his tongue after first mapping every trained muscle in Eggsy's back, that the sound of voices in the corridor cuts rudely into the fantasy and makes Eggsy shush Harry as quietly as he can manage.

"What's wrong?" Harry asks him, suddenly brisk and alert as though he's not just been all but composing sonnets to Eggsy's arse. Eggsy ends the call and texts him because it's silent: _Ppl in the corridor_ he says, then a moment later _Oh fuck lmao it's Arthur_

_This is why you should stay in my bed and never, ever leave._

Then, confusion sending a sickly weird chill through him and making his fingers feel stupid on the qwerty letters, Eggsy texts _wtf he's with Charlie's dad??? Thought u said km weren't getting involved with him??_ and curls himself tighter there behind the curtain in the window seat, holding his breath and trying to will himself invisible while he figures out what the fuck is going on.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Fucksake, do you ever think about anything except getting your mouth on my dick?"
> 
> "No. I mean, occasionally I also think about your thighs in tights."
> 
> Eggsy can't help laughing, even as he's mouthing sorry to a scandalised old lady who jumped like she'd been stung when she heard him say _dick_. "Some freak on Grindr once wanted me to come over right after practice and gag him with my tights, with the arse sweat right over his mouth."
> 
> " _Did_ he?" Harry asks, sounding far too interested. "Did you do it?"
> 
> "No! I'm normal, somehow I just attract really sick old creeps."

Turns out it's incredibly frustrating to see something weird, report it, then get banished from the room and basically ignored for a week while the world carries on like normal. Eggsy doesn't see Merlin for days, or Percival either, and Harry's still doing whatever the fuck he's doing in New Zealand. At least it means he's not being complained at for watching Netflix behind the gym desk on his not-job any more, but he's restless, and bored, and miserably lonely, even when Lancelot wakes up and pesters him for company because he's restless and bored as well.

"Forgot how much fucking noise Roxy and Charlie make," he gloomily tells Harry on the phone one morning as he walking from the tailor shop to his class. "And you, farting and muttering in your sleep. I ain't used to this much quiet, it feels weird."

"Well, I'm hoping you'll make a _lot_ of noise for me when I get home."

"Fucksake, do you ever think about anything except getting your mouth on my dick?"

"No. I mean, occasionally I also think about your thighs in tights."

Eggsy can't help laughing, even as he's mouthing sorry to a scandalised old lady who jumped like she'd been stung when she heard him say _dick_. "Some freak on Grindr once wanted me to come over right after practice and gag him with my tights, with the arse sweat right over his mouth."

" _Did_ he?" Harry asks, sounding far too interested. "Did you do it?"

"No! I'm normal, somehow I just attract really sick old creeps."

Now Harry's laughing, half the world away but sounding as clear as though he's walking in step right beside Eggsy. "This sick old creep loves you very, very much."

Somehow Eggsy still gets a sparkling shiver down his back hearing Harry say things like this, even for the nine thousandth time. "Yeah," he says, grinning stupidly and feeling for a moment a bit gangly and awkward like he's fourteen again. "Keep talking like that and maybe I won't get a restraining order."

Harry dutifully keeps talking like that all the way to Covent Garden.

* * *

He gets back in the middle of the night, sneaking silently into the bedroom and only waking Eggsy when he slides under the covers behind him.

"Shush," Harry whispers, tracing a tickling little line of kisses down the edge of Eggsy's ear. "Sleep."

"Gonna vanish again?" Eggsy murmurs, wriggling back against Harry's bare chest and the possessive weight of the arm Harry drapes over his waist.

"No."

"Gonna hold you so you can't," Eggsy tells him, and fades back to sleep with Harry's fingers wound together tightly with his own.

Of course Harry escapes at some point overnight - he's escaped countless near death experiences, he can break out of a sleepy hand-hold - and isn't there when Eggsy wakes up, though he's left a tacky little plastic figurine of a hobbit on the bedside table guarding a note:

_Darling -_

_Debriefing with Merlin, but shan't be long. I'm very aware I haven't yet romanced you as thoroughly as Hollywood tells me I ought to, which is an oversight I'm keen to remedy now we both have a day off. Let's steal the most absurd Bugatti in the garages and go and fuck on a cliff top somewhere._

_H x_

Eggsy draws a heart erupting enthusiastically from a penis at the bottom of the note in case Harry comes back here before they find each other, then drags himself out of bed and into clean practice clothes to pass the time.

He used to treasure days off, they all did: this one precious day a week they could sleep until noon if they wanted to, go and hang out with friends who had real jobs, all pile into Eggsy's parents' house for Sunday lunch, or take the dogs for long runs through one of the parks, and never have to hear a single word of French for about thirty-six straight hours. Everything's different now. Practising is about the only thing in the world that still feels - not normal, because normally he'd be dancing with Roxy or competing furiously with Charlie, but somehow vital, and more so than ever. Something to tire him out when the whirl of his mind is making him feel almost seasick. Something he can concentrate on so utterly that he forgets the whole world and all of its trouble exists.

There's nowhere in the house with mirrors, at least none any bigger than the two-way kind in an empty dorm room, but the old ballroom is huge and always empty and that matters more. Nobody to snoop at him warming up, nobody in the way when he gets in the right headspace for old half-forgotten roles to come flooding through him like a fever. He changes his warm-up music to his shuffled solos playlist after an hour and lets his memory take him over, working through every turn and soaring leap as easily as breathing to the Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

It's hard not to think of Roxy what that one starts - the sister he never had, instant best friend when she stood up to Charlie for him at age eleven - and he gives in to it, it's impossible not to. Remembers the steady look in her eyes when she's watching steps in rehearsals, and the shouting laughter any time he almost drops her. How weird it always feels on the nights they have to dance with someone else, like mismatched jigsaw pieces that can be forced into place without too much effort but never quite sit together as well as the right one. He remembers idle conversations at school, arguing about favourites one lunchtime on the grass outside while Roxy showed him how to make daisy chains. _Juliet_ , she'd said eventually, sitting up straight and graceful when Eggsy crowned her with his clumsy attempt so it wouldn't slip off her head. _At the Royal Opera House. That's the dream. But only if you're Romeo._ A performance they did in a school show of the balcony scene, and how for some reason he was the idiot with a massive lump in his throat at the applause after while Roxy hid her face against his shoulder just laughing helplessly, overwhelmed, with her hand clutching Eggsy's to her thudding heart. Rehearsing it with Sophie now Roxy's not there and wishing, horribly, that she'd been taken instead.

Eggsy hears the ballroom door opening in the few seconds' pause between two pieces of music, but he doesn't feel like stopping yet, and besides it's Harry there lurking in the doorway watching him so he doesn't even need to stop to be polite and say hello. He flings himself into a variation from Le Corsaire, or at least what he can remember of it, making up the rest as he goes and using Harry's mesmerised face as his spot for turns, finally stopping with the end of the music on his knees right by Harry's perfectly polished shoes.

"Hey," he says, grinning up at Harry's idiotic expression.

"Good morning." Harry controls himself, just about, but not so much that he can resist the need to reach out and stroke Eggsy's sweaty hair back off his forehead. "You've managed to win over Merlin's entire department, by the way. I came out of my meeting and they're all crowded around the camera monitors gasping over your perfect arse."

"Best not undo your trousers with my teeth then." He rises smoothly from his knees to rock up on tiptoe and give Harry a chaste-ish kiss which Harry, of course, coaxes into something lingering and spectacular with far too much tongue because he's a tart and doesn't seem to care who knows it. "Get off," Eggsy mutters into his mouth, though he's not making much of an effort to break free of Harry's hold on him. "Just cos you're part of the antique furniture here don't mean _I_ can't get the sack for public indecency."

"How dare you." He says it softly, amused, between a gentle scatter of kisses to Eggsy's cheeks and mouth. "You needn't stop. You looked fairly absorbed in it."

"Can't remember half of it, I'm just making shit up."

"Good enough for us philistines."

"Just trying to wear my brain out a bit, I keep thinking about Roxy." He keeps his arms around Harry's neck, walking backwards across the floor almost like a waltz towards the iphone dock so he can turn the music off without having to be more than a centimetre away from Harry now he's here. "But this ain't really helping, this just makes me think of her even more."

"That's understandable."

Harry stops talking, and walking, when Eggsy decides a hug is more important than the music, and silently begins to stroke Eggsy's hair again. It makes him shiver, though not in the same way as he shivers at all the other magical things Harry does to him. It's different. It's _safe_ , even with everything that's going on. The whole place could blow up around them and he thinks he'd still feel safe with Harry's fingers on the back of his neck like this.

"I know you miss her tremendously." Eggsy nods and clings tighter, there's nothing much else he can say, but then Harry whispers against his ear again, disguising it as a kiss. "Eggsy, listen to me. We're compromised, and we need your help."

"What the fuck?" he whispers back, wondering for a moment if this is some kind of shitty misjudged joke.

"Arthur is a traitor and we don't know who he's talked over to his side. He poisoned himself yesterday when he realised the game was up rather than go through interrogation. There's nobody but me, Merlin, Percival, and Lancelot left between here and global destruction, so we need to work quickly. Can you trust me?"

He absolutely wasn't expecting anything like that, and steps back a little way, frowning, studying Harry's face until Harry draws him back in and Eggsy begins to feel the sick flutter of nerves in his stomach the way he does before a big performance. "What the fuck am _I_ meant to do when you lot are trained killer spies?"

Harry's fingers begin to move on the back of his neck again, gently tapping.

Long, three short. Short, long. Two short. One long.

 _Bait_.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the night before the end of the world, and it's probably wise to say some goodbyes just in case.

Harry's reluctant to come inside, which is probably quite reasonable given all the messy history between him and the family, but Eggsy knows by now how to get whatever he wants without very much effort at all.

"You think I put _all_ my videos up on YouTube?" he murmurs against Harry's ear, pausing to touch the very tip of his tongue against the lobe in a way that always makes Harry's posture go just a degree wonkier than perfection. Harry breathes out slowly like he's doing fucking yoga or something, like he's having to really concentrate on not klaxoning out to the whole world what an obsessed little disaster he really is.

"You can't bribe me into your house with videos of something you give me freely in the flesh."

Eggsy nudges his nose into the short hair behind Harry's ear, inhaling the liquid money scent of his idiotically expensive shampoo. "Don't fucking pretend like you don't wanna see me aged eighteen in tiny sparkly red pants and literally nothing else dancing this Firebird ripoff I made up for my exams." Harry makes a noise like he's been kicked in the bollocks and is trying not to show how much it hurt, but still he doesn't make a move to undo his seatbelt because he's a stubborn fucker. "What's the first time you seen me in person?"

Harry's throat makes a dry clicking sound when he swallows. "Puck. You had green glitter on your cheekbones and flowers in your hair. I don't think I breathed for two hours."

"Show you my rehearsal vids if you come in," Eggsy whispers. He touches his lips to the edge of Harry's ear again and brushes all the way down, then rasps the faint stubble of his cheek against Harry's clean-shaven one on the way to his mouth. "Show you photos of my costume fitting."

"Merlin wants to speak to you," Harry says suddenly, looking vaguely annoyed. He slips his glasses off his own face and onto Eggsy's, and digs his earpiece out to push that in for him too. "Excuse the wax."

"Harry, fucksake! Hey, Merlin, what's--"

"He wants you to have time to say goodbye to your family," Merlin says bluntly. "You know how badly this could all go."

Eggsy goes very still at that and glances at Harry, who's looking out of the window nonchalantly at a cat grooming itself on top of a postbox.

"It won't, though."

"It's unwise to ever think these things can't go wrong. They can and often do. Don't make this more difficult for him than it already is, it took me days to convince him this is our best shot at success." There's a heavy little pause, then - awkwardly, like he's allergic to being even the slightest bit sentimental - Merlin says, "We'll do all we can to get you back to them, and Harry to you. I hope you know that. But please for god's sake give the old man a break and do as you're told for once."

The line goes dead. Eggsy carries on watching Harry for a moment - the line of his jaw, his flawlessly cut suit jacket, his hands neatly folded on his lap - then gives him back his glasses and earpiece, kisses his cheek gently, and gets out of the car without another word.

Everything feels so real suddenly, like the instant jump from blur to clarity in a Magic Eye picture. Maybe he's been avoiding truly thinking about it despite all the meetings and the detailed plans he's had to memorise, but that's just the way he's always worked: none of his roles seem real until the moment the curtain lifts in the opera house, no matter how many weeks and months of rehearsal he slogs through. This attempt to stop the end of the world hasn't seemed real either, but now it's settled in his stomach like a bad curry and he feels slightly sick.

A mum-hug helps, of course. Mum-hugs always help. She's got the door open before Eggsy even gets his key out of his pocket, and she comes out onto the doorstep to put her arms around him and squeeze him tight. "Alright, babe?" she says quietly, and Eggsy nods as he's hugging her back even though he feels a bit like crying now. "Who's that in the car?"

"Bodyguard." It's not exactly a lie, but enough of one to feel uncomfortable. He hates lying to her. "Twice they tried to grab me now, the cops ain't taking no chances."

His mum looks troubled when she draws back, fussing at him to neaten his jacket and his hair the way she always does when she doesn't know what else to do. Roxy's been like the sister Eggsy never had for a decade and a half now, and her kidnap's been a devastating jolt to the whole family. They're even upset about Charlie, though mainly because he's always on his most cloying best behaviour around them because he knows his fakery gets on Eggsy's nerves. "Nice to know they're taking it seriously at least," she says, trying and utterly failing to sound upbeat about it. "Ain't he coming in?"

"Nah. Says he's better off watching the street." The urge to twist round and look at Harry is almost overwhelming, but Eggsy lets the door close without glancing back. Merlin's words are thudding like a headache in his brain - _say goodbye to your family_ \- and that's what he's got to do as best he can without actually saying the words and alarming everyone.

He creeps up behind his stepdad in the kitchen the way he and Jamal always used to do when they were kids, and Steve jumps and yells in pretend-surprise the way he always used to do to make them laugh. He turns round, grinning, and Eggsy surprises him in return with a hug - not the matey backslapping sort, but the kind of hug that says _I love you_ without the words. He can feel Steve's hands on his back and thinks he probably kind of gets it; not this possible genocide thing, but the fear of loss and the gratitude at seeing it averted. Eggsy's dad and Jamal's mum both died so young, and this smushed-together little family became overly affectionate like a strange sort of reflex: he can still remember the tears in Steve's eyes the first time Eggsy made him a Father's Day card, and how he'd been at every single school show holding Eggsy's mum's hand and a camcorder in the other, beaming like he'd won the lottery even when Eggsy was just an anonymous dancer at the back of the corps.

"No news?" Steve asks. Eggsy shakes his head and feels his stepdad sigh heavily.

"Apparently that's good news, innit?"

"So they say." He pulls back a bit, and smiles kind of sadly at Michelle over Eggsy's shoulder. "Go and have a gossip with your mum, dinner ain't ready yet."

It's not much of a gossip, neither of them are really in the mood for it, but it's nice anyway getting half an hour just to be _quiet_ for the first time in weeks. Eggsy curls up on his side on the sofa with his head on his mum's leg and she strokes his hair softly the way she used to when he was little and pretending not to be sleepy yet in the hour before bedtime. Every now and then one of them murmurs something unimportant - _Ryan bought that bike off Liam, been thinking about a cruise if that ain't too middle-aged, that new kebab place round the corner's mint_ \- and the other hums something wordless to indicate they're still listening, but apart from that the room is still and silent and warm and comfortable. Living with Roxy and Charlie and the dogs is home, and so is Harry's weirdo little house full of dead bugs, but this will always be _home_.

"Love you," Eggsy says suddenly, overwhelmed with it. He wriggles onto his back and looks up at his mum, who boops his nose like he's still a toddler.

"Love you too."

"Just making sure you know, yeah? Like, just in case."

"Babe, I ain't ever needed to question it."

The front door bangs open then and Eggsy sits up because the only people who ever make that much noise coming into the house are Jamal and Ryan and he can't be bothered navigating their perpetual piss-taking at what a mummy's boy he is, no matter how good-natured they are about it. They come barging into the living room and fling themselves one by one at the loveseat, Ryan twisting round to glance out of the window at the street.

"Geezer out there looks like he's up to something," he says. He looks worried - he's trying to hide it, but Eggsy's known him since birth and can read him like a billboard. "Parked right outside the gate and keeps fucking peering at the house."

"Yeah, bruv," Jamal says, anxious eyes on Eggsy, "you wanna call the cops, or get Brandon's brother and his mates round to kick his shit in?"

Eggsy glances at his mum, unable to hide his grin, and sees her roll her eyes before she gets up. "Nobody's kicking anyone's shit in," she tells them on her way to the door to go and help in the kitchen. "That's Eggsy's bodyguard."

"Don't fucking start," Eggsy says at once, but Jamal and Ryan start cackling anyway. He doesn't mind really - it's nice to know they care, and there's just as much obvious relief in their laughter as amusement. "Anyone starts singing that fucking Whitney song you're gonna lose your teeth, swear down. I've had enough of it. My life's on the line here." He just _knows_ one of them's gearing up for some crack about what a ballerina diva he's become to get so melodramatic about it, but they're called through for dinner then so it's put off for a little while at least.

But on his way through to the dining room, Steve hands Eggsy a plate of Sunday roast and a Thermos and tells him, "Run this out to your bodyguard fella. If he ain't coming in he should at least get some decent grub in him, it's the least we can do. It's tea, thought he probably don't drink wine or nothing on duty."

That makes him laugh, though his nose feels suddenly hot and tingly with the threat of tears as well at how fucking lucky he is to have this family and how unfathomable the idea of any of them getting hurt is. Probably best not to let on how Harry's bloodstream is almost entirely gin, and most of what's left is whisky. "You're the best. Back in a sec."

He runs out, Thermos tucked under his arm so he can hold the plate steady without dropping roasties and cutlery all over the front garden. Harry looks surprised to see him, glancing up from his tablet then sliding across the seat to open the door for him. "What's this?"

"Steve and Michelle Covington's five star rare beef and goose fat roasties. Best in the UK, maybe even the world. And tea. Milk no sugar, I checked."

Harry seems incredibly touched by the gesture, a soft little smile showing up the dimple in his cheek. "Wonderful. Please thank them for me. I was planning a supper of cocktail onions."

"Hope you don't mind eating off your knees. You want a napkin or something?"

"No, this is fine." He takes the plate and places it carefully on the sea beside him, then his fingers linger for a moment on Eggsy's when he takes the flask. "Eggsy," he starts, hesitates for a moment like he's not sure whether to continue, then blazes ahead. "Merlin told me what he told you. About saying goodbye."

"Oh," Eggsy says, because it feels like he should make some kind of sound but doesn't know what. "Yeah."

"It's scaremongering to a certain extent, Merlin's always been something of a mother hen about these things. He cares more deeply than he likes to let on and, frankly, I think he's anxious about having someone with no experience play such a pivotal role in a mission this important."

"Yeah, well, he ain't the only one," Eggsy says wryly. Quickly he glances over his shoulder, paranoid that his entire family might be crowded up against the hall window staring at them, then climbs into the cab and shuts the door behind himself. Not with any dirty intentions but just because he wants to be close, he drops to his knees on the car floor and rests his forehead on Harry's knees, smiling into the fabric of his trousers at the immediate touch of those glorious fingers stroking the back of his hair. "Maybe they'll be pissed I escaped twice and just shoot me dead instead of bothering again. Maybe you'll trip or something and get a bullet in the face when you're fighting instead of in your fancy suit. There's like a fucking million things that might go wrong, but what's the alternative? Don't try at all? Fuck that. Like, I'm shitting myself, and I can't even think about what if you get hurt or I'm gonna scream til I'm bleeding out my eyes. But we gotta do this." Harry's fingers rub lower, slowly sliding over vertebrae bumps to the nape of Eggsy's neck, and Eggsy raises his head at last to look up at him. "Is this how you feel all the time?"

Harry laughs softly, barely a breath, and strokes his fingers around to cup Eggsy's cheek. "Every bloody mission since 1981."

"No fucking wonder you drink so much."

* * *

Later, after dinner, after a couple of rounds of drinks, after a bit of telly, after dark, Eggsy can't stop replaying the conversation in his head. Can't stop thinking about Harry's eyes and how tired he'd looked when Eggsy kissed him and got out of the car to head back inside. From his place on the loveseat he can turn a bit and see the faint bluish glow illuminating the inside of the Kingsman cab, presumably the screen of Harry's tablet. Wonders if he's watching YouTube ballet videos again, and has to try really hard not to smile like an idiot at the thought.

A WhatsApp notification beeps on his phone and he swipes it open without looking at the name, thinking it's probably from Harry, but it's from Jamal in the group chat they share with Ryan.

_That's your bf right?_

Eggsy's head darts up to stare across the room at him, and at Ryan who's sitting cross-legged on the carpet next to Jamal with his eyebrows raised. Jamal glances quickly at their parents on the other sofa and makes a show of tilting his phone screen away from them even though they're engrossed in whatever's on the telly.

 _Bodyguard_ , Eggsy mouths, and Jamal starts tapping another message out.

_Ok yeah but you're looking at him like Whitney looks at Kevin sooooo_

Ryan now, typing rapidly: _Not judging mate just asking yeah_

Eggsy replies _Wtf makes you even ask_ , and the other two look at each other and then back at him, wearing matching expressions of pantomime disapproval.

 _Just weird if you're gargling his spunk all the time but he's sitting out there not in here_ , Jamal replies, and Eggsy's mouth says a disbelieving, half-laughing, "Oh my god," out loud without his permission.

"What's that, babe?" his mum asks absently, and Ryan stifles a laugh and turns it into a fake cough.

"Oh, nothing, someone's just being a dickhead on Reddit." He waits for her to turn back to the screen and shows Jamal and Ryan both middle fingers until they both go back to furiously typing and the chat screen starts filling up.

_Wtf man ask him in what's wrong with you_

_U embarrassed of him or sth_

_Na cuz he's embarrassed of us_

_Not good enough for them new fancy fucks he hangs round with_

_YOUVE CHANGED_

_U NEVER USE TO BE ASHAMED OF US_

_Fucking stop it_ , Eggsy texts, with a string of about eighteen emoji faces blowing smoke out of their noses. _Not ashamed of u or him or anyone he's just working n don't need distractions_

There's a quiet jubilant sound, and Ryan and Jamal fist bump discreetly without disturbing the others.

 _Lol so you're a distraction? Knew it_ , Jamal says, and Ryan adds _Right in the trap u fuckin loser lmao_

Eggsy sends thirty-seven middle fingers emojis individually, one per line, glaring at them both the whole time.

 _Is he gonna just sleep in the car then_ , Jamal asks, raising his eyebrows until Eggsy stops emoji-bombing the chat and actually reads the message. _What if he needs a piss tho_

 _Ask him in it's rude not to_ , Ryan says, ruining his point thoroughly by framing it with aubergine emojis.

"Oh my god," Eggsy says again, defeated, and stamps out of the room, out the front door, right down the path to the car. "Please come inside," he says when Harry winds the window down, "them fuckers ain't letting it drop til you do."

Harry, the smoothest and bravest man Eggsy knows even taking all the stalker stuff into account, actually looks apprehensive. "Do they know about...?"

"My arsehole brother and best mate do. Parents don't. I don't care if they do but I ain't gonna bring it up or nothing and put you on the spot. Just come inside and have a wee and a drink, you can escape again any time you want."

It's the offer of a toilet that tipped it, probably, going from the endless camel piss Harry does in the under stairs loo as soon as he gets inside. He looks more comfortable after, anyway, his flawless mask of perfection firmly back in place over the hot mess he actually is at his core, and follows Eggsy into the living room where everyone's sitting quietly like it's the anticipatory moment before curtain up in the theatre.

"This is my bodyguard Harry," Eggsy announces to everyone, "played by Kevin Costner," he adds with a narrow-eyed look at Ryan and Jamal who look like they're about to burst at the seams trying not to laugh. "That's my mum Michelle and dad Steve, my mate Ryan, brother Jamal, and you met the dogs already. Anyone want a drink?"

When he gets back from the kitchen Harry's already charming his parents, chatting away like they've known each other for years about whatever dreary costume drama they've just finished watching. Eggsy wriggles his arse in between Jamal and Ryan, who of course stole his loveseat as soon as he vacated it, and murmurs, "Wankers," as he's handing them their beers.

 _Still dk why you wouldn't bring him in earlier_ , Jamal types so they won't be overheard.

 _Got no energy to explain/defend us rn_ , Eggsy replies, and then Jamal and Ryan both fill the screen with eyeroll emojis.

 _Mate it's no big deal everyone already knows you like em half dead_ , Ryan says, then tries both to laugh and recoil silently when Eggsy jabs him hard in the side with his elbow.

 _Yeah and dad and m like him_ , Jamal adds, cocking his head at the other sofa and Harry sitting like a king in the armchair, laughing at something one of the others just said.

 _Impossible to not like him_ , Eggsy types, adding a sparkly pink emoji heart at the end like punctuation, and other than some very mild, very quiet jeering, that seems to be the end of that.

They're playing Monopoly later when it all tumbles out. Eggsy knee-walks the few steps to the coffee table to move his marker along and pay his rent to Ryan, who's winning like fucking always, and when he returns to where he was sitting on the carpet he leans against Harry's legs, not really thinking about it, and tips his head back to glance up at him and the dimples bracketing his helpless, fond smile.

"Tired?" Harry asks, and Eggsy says unthinkingly, "Yeah, babe."

"You can't keep a secret for _shit_ , bruv," Jamal says, laughing, almost knocking his beer over in his haste to punch playfully at Eggsy's arm. "Thought you'd last out the night at least."

"Fuck off," Eggsy tells him, too tired to put any real force behind it. He sees his parents glance at each other, then at Harry, then at him, and loops his arm casually around Harry's ankle in a way that would be defiant if he really felt it needed to be. They look thoughtful more than concerned; maybe letting Harry charm them before they found out was the right way to go about it after all. He's not entirely sure they'd be quite so calm about it all if they knew about Harry's link with his dad, but as a tentative first step this seems to be going alright.

"My roll," Steve says after a moment - then he lands on one of Ryan's properties and the room descends into yelling taunts and objections and Quality Streets thrown at heads, cross-generational romances all but forgotten.

"Sorry to dump you in it like that," Eggsy says quietly, "I never meant to," but Harry only smiles, completely unconcerned, and begins to gently stroke his hair.

"I'm not sorry. Might take that back if your dad chases me out of the house with a fire poker, mind."

The idea of the softest, nicest man in the world chasing anybody with anything is hilarious, and Eggsy presses his mouth against the side of Harry's knee to muffle his laughter until Jamal and Ryan notice and start pelting him with sweets as well.

* * *

Bedtime is vaguely awkward, Steve cautiously offering Harry the spare room until Michelle puts a hand on his arm to shut him up and brightly says, "We're all adults here, ain't we?"

Eggsy can't stop laughing about it once they're in his bedroom, rolling on his back on the bed with both arms flung over his face so he won't be overheard. "Fucking hell," he says eventually when he's got himself together. "I mean we all know we all get laid on the regular but having to actually face up to it is fucking awful - are you alright?"

Harry's standing in the middle of the room like he doesn't really know what to do with himself, and Eggsy shuffles to the edge of his bed to reach for his hand. Harry blinks then like he's mentally shaking himself, and goes with Eggsy's insistent tugging until he's on the bed as well, straddling Eggsy's thighs and accepting a long, slow, fucking glorious kiss. "Fine," he says belatedly, a little bit breathless, beautifully flushed in the cheeks and wet around the mouth. "Having heart palpitations at being in your teenage bedroom, of course," he admits, cocking his head toward the bookcase that's full of ballet competition trophies and various awards instead of books. "But fine."

"Sick old pervert," Eggsy murmurs, unable to keep the adoration out of his voice. "You wanna see them videos? Wanna hear how many times I wanked myself raw in this bed growing up?"

"Absolutely yes," Harry says reverently, then adds, "but another time." He shifts, moving from on top of Eggsy to his side, and drapes an arm across his waist. "I loathe the thought of your family thinking I've failed you."

He's too close to focus on positioned like this, but as beige blurs go he's the loveliest one in the world. "Yeah," Eggsy says softly, angling his face to avoid a nose bump and going in for another gentle kiss. "Maybe we should say we're going to a safe house for a couple of days or something. They won't freak out about me going missing then. And if we fuck up and everyone gets wiped out then it won't matter anyway."

Harry considers for a second then nods. "That makes sense. I'll let Merlin know. We'll have to make sure they take you from somewhere without security cameras or witnesses."

"Just don't come with me to class tomorrow. If they're still after me they're gonna know you're always there. If we look like we think I ain't in danger no more, they'll know about it. And there's a ton of back streets and shit I can walk down on the way."

"Right." Harry breathes out heavily, worry making his face look slack and old, then he smiles that dorky toothy wonderful grin with the dimples and the eye crinkles and Eggsy can't resist kissing him again even though he knows it's another mask, he knows it's just Harry trying to make him feel like everything's going to be fine even though there's absolutely no way to know. "I will find you, my love," Harry says against Eggsy's mouth, quiet and urgent like he's never meant anything more in his life. "If I have to blow up every single door on this entire planet, I'll find you."

"Yeah, babe, I know."

Somewhere in the muddle of frantic kisses that follows, Eggsy remembers to get up and take his nanotracker pill. Somewhere else in there, they both manage to strip down to their boxers and get under the covers. And a long time later, hours later, they fall asleep with their heads on the same pillow and Harry's arms curled possessively, protectively, around Eggsy's trembling body.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Stop scratching," Roxy tells Eggsy. Her tone is almost absent, she's looking worriedly back at the monitors now, but Merlin glances down at him and then reaches for Eggsy's chin to turn his head and examine the scar.
> 
> "Had to let him chip me like a dog," Eggsy explains, "only way I could make him think I was in. They kinda sewed it back up with this laser type thing, but it still itches like fucking balls."
> 
> "That's how he blew up their heads," Merlin says softly, more like he's figuring something out in his own mind than speaking to the others. His eyebrows flicker again, the crease in between deepening. "Like a tracker, some kind of monitoring device. And a kill switch when they were compromised."
> 
> "Merlin? What the f--"
> 
> "We need to get that out of you _right now_ ," Merlin says urgently, then ruins this unexpected display of emotion by adding, "I've only just had this plane re-upholstered."

Eggsy's instincts have been on edge for so long that when the kidnappers attack again he almost loses them and has to remind himself to slow down.

Racing like a whippet through the deserted backstreets, he fakes a stumble and throws himself against the side of a skip as if he fell there. It's enough of a delay that he doesn't get more than a dozen limping steps further on before they reach him and a pair of rough gloved hands curl bruisingly tight around his arms, his flailing feet ending up clamped in someone else's armpits when he snarls in fury and tries to kick the guy away. He doesn't have to fake a bit of his outraged yelling: being tipped up like this and carried to the waiting van like a dead deer is mortifying and undignified in a way he never thought to anticipate, a horrible extra layer to the thrumming fear he's been trying to breathe past all morning ever since he kissed Harry goodbye at the shop and started walking to class.

There's the shock of a needle suddenly nipping at his arm, and then he's too tired to fight any more and the world around him fades to black.

* * *

The first thing Eggsy sees when he wakes up again is Richmond Valentine, which - even though this was the plan all along - is more than a bit disconcerting.

"The fuck?" he mumbles, mouth so dry he has to peel his lips apart to speak, and Valentine flashes that famous wide, easy grin Eggsy's seen a million times on the telly and double decker adverts.

"'Sup, man? Guess it's true what they say about ballet dancers. Damn, you guys got stamina! Nobody ever gave my guys a workout like this before." He reaches for a glass beside the hospital bed and nudges the straw around so Eggsy can reach it, then, apparently clocking Eggsy's open look of hostility, adds, "It's water, man, not poison. You want a soda instead?"

Eggsy narrows his eyes and sucks at the straw, trying to swallow down his seething hatred with it like a pill. "Where's Roxy and Charlie?"

"Downstairs," Valentine says casually like he just can't understand why everyone's been making such a fucking fuss about being kidnapped. "They needed a little persuasion to stay. I'm still working on that. Whenever they agree to see things my way they can come out of their cells, but--"

"Stubborn arseholes, right?" Eggsy interrupts, feeling almost faint with gratitude now he knows they've not been shot in the head or something, and Valentine looks delighted.

"Right!" he agrees enthusiastically. "I mean ordinarily I wouldn't say shit like that about a lady, but your girl Ms Morton kicked two of my best guys so hard in the balls I swear I heard them _pop_."

"Yeah, well, maybe she don't like being fucking kidnapped, bruv, you ever consider that?"

Valentine's manner is infuriating. Nothing seems to bother him. He's patient and friendly and reasonable, except for being a fucking genocidal madman with enough money and influence to actually start getting somewhere with his messed up plans. "There's only one right side of history, man," he says, holding his hands up like the fucking shrug emoji as if to say _welp, that's just how it is_. "We gotta be on it. And sure, there's gonna be some people who can't open their minds and see the reality. That's okay. We're not trying to brainwash anyone here. Right, Gazelle?"

Eggsy's heart lurches then at the sharp, metallic sound of blades tapping on the tile floor, noticing for the first time that they're not alone in the room. Valentine's bodyguard from the night of the gala, the woman Harry said almost gutted him like a fish in Argentina, comes into view holding a water jug and tops up Eggsy's glass. "Right," she confirms, bright and smiling, but her eyes are like cold, emotionless chips of flint and he looks away, suppressing a shiver.

"I mean," Valentine goes on, "Richard Wagner was an antisemitic asshole, right? And Roman Polanski fucked that little girl. And did you know Cary Grant beat his wife? Does that mean The Philadelphia Story stops being a masterpiece?"

Very slowly, trying to look casual about it and not like he's so angry he's ready to spit blood, Eggsy forces himself to unclench his fists because he can see the bodyguard glancing at them suspiciously. "I dunno what you're getting at."

Valentine shrug-emojis again, like it should be obvious. "What good is saving the world if all the best artists get left behind? I don't wanna live in a world with no Elton John or Judi Dench or"--he grins wide again, gesturing at Eggsy like a gameshow girl presenting the prizes--"Gary Covington, no matter how wrong you all are." Then he puts his hand over his neon orange breast pocket like he's about to launch into that stupid American flag prayer thing. "And I truly believe here in my heart you guys are gonna come around and see I'm talking sense. You'll be glad I saved you then."

"Well, what if we don't?"

There: the briefest lightning flash of cool anger in Valentine's eyes. "Then I gotta do what I gotta do."

This guy does not like hearing the word no.

But after weeks of living at the Kingsman headquarters, going through all the same basic-but-thorough training as every other non-agent there, falling hopelessly in love with the organisation's top operative, Eggsy's switched on enough to recognise an advantage when he sees one.

"Hey, could I have that Pepsi?" he asks suddenly. Valentine's eyes soften back to his usual cheerful expression and he looks at Gazelle, nodding at her to go and fetch it. As soon as she's out of earshot - because maybe he'll be able to string Valentine along but there's no way she'll fall for any of it - Eggsy continues, "I ain't saying _I_ don't think you're talking sense. Now you've explained a bit more I think I'm getting it. I'm just worried about Charlie and Roxy, you know what I mean?"

Valentine's nodding eagerly, eating up this change of heart like a gourmet chocolate. "I get it, man, I do, you wanna keep your people safe."

"Yeah. They're family, you get me?" Eggsy's digging his fingernail hard into the side of his thumb now, needing something to concentrate on or he'll fucking lose it remembering his mum and Steve giggling together like children at breakfast that morning over a cartoon strip in the paper, completely unaware there was anything wrong. "I mean, if everything goes the way you say it's gonna then I won't have any family no more, will I? Only them two stubborn fuckers who think they know better than the legit smartest bloke in the world."

"Fourteen degrees and a fortune," Valentine says proudly.

"Yeah, exactly! I don't wanna lose them just cos they can't get their heads out their arses long enough to see what's up. You know what, though, I bet I could talk them round."

Twenty minutes later, head reeling a bit and neck stinging like fuck from the microchip he had to let Gazelle implant behind his ear to strengthen his sudden show of loyalty, Eggsy's following a guy with a machine gun through winding corridors lined with steel cell doors. He turns his head away when the guy taps in the four digit access code to one, though he strains his eyes sideways and manages to sneak a look anyway, memorising it for later.

" _Eggsy_?" Roxy says when she sees him, and she sounds so dismayed it actually hurts to hear. She flies over the room to hug him, clinging to the back of his neck with fingers that tremble at first and then grow steady as she calms. She pulls back eventually, just enough to look at him, and Eggsy presses his forehead against hers because he's not ready to let go yet - not after all these endless sleepless nights half-convinced she wouldn't be here at all, wondering whether she'd been murdered on the night she was snatched and this entire thing was some kind of sick charade or something. Having her _here_ in the flesh in front of him now, solid and alive, is making him feel weak and borderline tearful.

"Yeah, nice to see you and all," he says, pulling his sleeve over his fist to swipe at his runny eyes and nose.

"I heard them saying you'd escaped, I really hoped you'd be safe somewhere."

"Listen," he murmurs, pulling her close again and trying to disguise his words as just another hug in case there's cameras or the guard is watching through the peephole or something. "I told Valentine I'm down with his bullshit scheme and I'm gonna try and talk you and Charlie into it and all, he never woulda let me see you otherwise. So if I say any fucked up shit it ain't real, alright?"

"Alright," Roxy says at once, quiet and sure; she knows him better than anybody in the world, and seems to be able to tell already that there's much more to all this than she understands. "What's going on? Are you planning something?"

"Not me. Harry."

"...Flower guy Harry?"

"Yeah. It's a long story."

"Well, give me the tl;dr."

"He's a spy. I got nanotrackers in my bloodstream. Him and his mates should be here any minute to fuck this place up."

"Right," Roxy says faintly. "Nanotrackers in your bloodstream."

"So now you can say you're up for genocide and get this neck implant shit for whatever fucking reason"--Eggsy takes Roxy's hand and directs her fingertip to the tender scar behind his ear--"I dunno what it's for, counting us or a tracker or whatever, get implanted and come upstairs for his end of the world party. Or stick with 'fuck you Richmond Valentine' and stay here til help comes." He's got a decent view of the room over her shoulder and it's nothing like what he imagined from the outside: the door makes it unmistakably a cell, but there's a plush queen size bed against one wall, a chaise, a small stocked bookcase, even a barre bolted to the floor beside a wide mirror stretching up to the ceiling. "Looks pretty comfy. You been treated alright? I mean, considering."

He can feel movement against his shoulder where Roxy's face is pressed, a smile that probably wouldn't actually look very amused if he could see it. "Well enough. Valentine's a huge fan, apparently." She says it with a dripping disdain that could melt bone. "I'm sure Mr Hesketh will be pleased to know we've been encouraged to rehearse even here."

Oh shit. "Yeah," Eggsy says slowly, "about that. He's in on it. So was Harry's boss but he killed himself when he got rumbled. I dunno where Charlie's dad went, he vanished after that. Might even be upstairs right now wanking off with all his arsehole mates."

Roxy swears viciously at that, enraged, though it's mostly drowned out by the sound of a fist thumping on the outside of the door.

"Gotta go," Eggsy says with one last lingering squeeze. "You coming or staying?"

"Staying," Roxy says soberly after a moment. "I can't fake being okay with this."

"Alright, then remember 7-6-9-9, that's your door code. You see any handsome guys in suits wandering round out there, tell 'em Eggsy says let you out."

"7-6-9-9," she repeats, and goes up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek fiercely. "Be careful."

Eggsy remembers Harry on the night after the gala, weaving around bullets in his impeccable evening suit, and turns to go so she can't see his giddy helpless grin at what a ridiculous notion _careful_ is for the people coming to fetch them.

Charlie's cell is a few doors down on the opposite side of the corridor - but before the guard can open it there's the unholy wail of an alarm starting up, echoing in horror-film discordance around the maze of stone corridors, and Eggsy fakes confusion even though his heart is doing jubilant somersaults and stares blankly at the guard.

"Uhh, mate, what's going on?"

The guy looks just as lost as Eggsy's trying to. "I have to report to my supervisor. I'll guess I'll take you back upstairs first...?"

"No way, I ain't going nowhere with that danger signal blaring! Ain't it safer down here? I'll just..." He trails off, looking up and down the corridor nervously then curling himself into a doorway, arms wrapped protectively around his drawn-up knees. "Duck and cover, innit," he says, staring up at the guard with wide, anxious eyes.

The guard stares back for a second, flummoxed, then turns without another word and races for the staircase they came down to get here.

"Holy fuck, it fucking worked," Eggsy mutters, and leaps up to taps in Roxy's access code.

She looks pale when he swings the door open and waves her out, very nervous, but as steady and calm and focused as always despite all that. "So what's the plan?"

"I dunno. The plan was just load me up with trackers and follow me in, I got no clue what they're doing now. Should we just... go inside and wait?" He feels down the edge of the door at the heavy mechanism of the electronic lock, and adds, "Probably just get locked back in again if it swings shut though, I dunno if there's a way to disable it."

"Eggsy, I've been stuck in there for fucking weeks, I'm not going back in!"

Her raised voice must be loud enough to penetrate the cell door they're standing beside, because there's a sudden clanging series of thumps on it and then Charlie's yelling, "Roxy? _Eggy_?"

Roxy hurries over and drags the little shutter open, and Charlie's face immediately fills the gap the way all the dogs try to press themselves out of the flat windows any time a cocky cat or bird decides to strut along the sill in front of them.

"What the bloody hell is going on? What are you doing here? I thought you escaped, you prick!"

"I did!" Eggsy snaps, feeling stupidly defensive about it; Charlie always brings that side out in him, always has and apparently always will, but god it's good to see even his annoying fucking face. "You alright?"

"I'm wonderful, mate, I've been fucking kidnapped and held in this disgusting cellar for weeks on end and made to eat vegan food that tastes like cardboard. Get me out of here!"

"We can't, we don't know your door code." He pauses for several seconds to let Charlie's temper tantrum run its course, swearing and kicking and punching the door, then adds, "We're gonna sort it, alright? That's what the alarm's for, there's people coming to shut this mad bastard down. Gonna get you out soon as, just hold on."

"Then how'd you get Roxy out?" he yells, kicking the door again. "You two are always fucking ganging up on me, it's not _fair_."

He shuts up at once when Roxy gives him her best, coolest, stop-your-shit stare. "Stop kicking things," she tells him calmly. "Stop howling. We're going to look for help."

" _No_ , please don't leave me here alone," he begs, and reaches desperately for her through the gap in the door.

Roxy's never been all that great at comforting people in distress, but manages an awkward squeeze of the hand and pat on the wrist. "It's alright," she says, the same tone of voice she uses to soothe her poodle when he's over-excited and stressed out. "Just sit down. I promise we'll be back soon, or someone will."

His panicky pleas follow them all the way down the corridor as they jog down in the opposite direction of the stairs, but soon fade away after they round a few corners. "He been like that this whole time?" Eggsy asks, and Roxy can't hold back a laugh.

"Poor Charlie. This isn't really a place for cowards, is it? I honestly thought he might be dragged out and shot, the way he was carrying on. He kept yelling _my dad's going to hear about this_ any time the guards came round." She sobers a bit at that, and when Eggsy glances sideways at her she looks troubled. "I don't want to be the one to tell him it's his dad who put us all here."

"Yeah, well, maybe he'll finally fucking grow up once he realises he ain't got his golden safety net no more."

He stops abruptly, Roxy's arm shooting out in front of him as they turn another corner, and together they scramble backwards and then peer carefully around it, ready to whip their heads away if it looks like they're going to be shot at.

A plane.

"It's alright," Eggsy says after a moment. He cautiously starts inching down the last corridor to the opening, wondering if this thing really does look familiar or he's being tricked by his own memories of watching glumly out of the mansion windows as Harry flew off to yet another mission. "I think it's--"

He hisses a brutal swear and flattens himself against the wall when a figure appears in the open doorway, like that's going to be enough to stop him being shot up if he's got this horribly wrong - then his breath trembles out of him in a wobbly, thankful sigh when he sees who it is.

"Never thought I'd be this pleased to see your mug, guv," Eggsy says when he gets to the bottom of the stairs, and the corner of Merlin's mouth lifts just a fraction which is apparently what a smile looks like on him.

"Likewise. Get inside, come on, both of you. Pleased to meet you, Ms Morton."

They follow him into the plane and collapse into seats, Eggsy mostly because he feels like he might not be able to resist the urge to hug Merlin otherwise and that won't be fun for either of them no matter how heartfelt it is. "So where's Harry?" he says instead, because waiting even one second longer feels like it's going to rip him apart at the seams. The scar behind his ear is itching like fuck and he scratches it carefully, welcoming the weird tinge of pain that seems to do the same job as a hit of adrenaline. "He's alright, yeah?"

"He's coping," Merlin says dryly, and tilts a monitor screen so they can see what appears to be footage from a hacked security camera: Harry and Lancelot are back to back in a corridor holding off at least twenty guards at each side, fighting as intricately as if the whole thing's been choreographed for the stage. Lancelot does an elaborate backflip over half a dozen men and Harry swings his umbrella around to stun the ones he vaulted, quickly spinning back to his own side to block them both from a thunderclap of bullets. "You two are the best intel we've got - what can you tell me about the layout?"

"They need to get upstairs if they're after Valentine," Roxy says. She gets out of her chair and goes to kneel by Merlin instead, folding her arms on the desk and resting her chin on top to carefully study the three different views on the monitors. "Where they are now, I believe that's the other side of the cells. And here"--she gestures at the view of the room full of people drinking and milling about in evening wear--"is a couple of levels up. Valentine took us up there to see if we'd be more inclined to join him if we, I don't know, saw his fancy little dancefloor."

Eggsy joins them on Merlin's other side. "Yeah, from the hospital bit? That's the level between the cells and here. So they gotta get past them guards, go up two, and Valentine's in that glass office."

"Up three," Roxy corrects him. "He's so paranoid, I can't imagine that window's not bulletproof even though he's personally hand-picked everybody in that room. They'll probably need to get right inside."

Merlin nods and begins relaying all of that through the microphone. Eggsy sees Harry glance up and around, and then when he finds the camera overhead he kisses his fingers and blows with a grin that just looks immensely relieved and nowhere near as dashing and cool as he probably means it to.

"Idiot," Merlin mutters, then louder into the microphone says, "Percival, approaching range."

"Range of what?" Eggsy asks.

"One of Valentine's satellites. From his correspondence with Arthur it looks like he was planning some kind of attack through doctored sim cards, but after he went into hiding they were never given out. He's going for the phone masts instead." Merlin goes quiet for a moment, watching on screen as another fifty or so guards come streaming into both ends of the corridor either side of Harry and Lancelot. The tiny frown crease between his eyebrows is barely there, the same way his smile was: as obvious as anything if you know what the look for. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he murmurs. "They haven't got the ammo to get past all this."

"Stop scratching," Roxy tells Eggsy. Her tone is almost absent, she's looking worriedly back at the monitors now, but Merlin glances down at him and then reaches for Eggsy's chin to turn his head and examine the scar.

"Had to let him chip me like a dog," Eggsy explains, "only way I could make him think I was in. They kinda sewed it back up with this laser type thing, but it still itches like fucking balls."

"That's how he blew up their heads," Merlin says softly, more like he's figuring something out in his own mind than speaking to the others. His eyebrows flicker again, the crease in between deepening. "Like a tracker, some kind of monitoring device. And a kill switch when they were compromised."

"Merlin? What the f--"

"We need to get that out of you _right now_ ," Merlin says urgently, then ruins this unexpected display of emotion by adding, "I've only just had this plane re-upholstered."

"Merlin," Eggsy says again, a lurching creep of horror tumbling through his stomach, but he might as well not be there for all the response he gets.

"Roxy, there's a first aid box behind that panel." She's hauled it out and opened it for him almost before he's finished asking for it, and Merlin snatches up a wrapped pair of gloves, a scalpel, some torturous looking tweezers, and a packet of sutures. "How are you with a needle and thread?"

"I can just about manage to sew ribbons on my pointe shoes...?"

"Good enough."

" _Good enough_?" Eggsy almost yells. "That's my fucking neck you're talking about!"

"Are you going to hold still or do I need to dart you?"

"Dart me out, guv, fucking do it, I ain't--"

* * *

Eggsy wakes slowly, allows himself a brief moment of indulgence to wonder whether he's dead, then cautiously opens his eyes.

"Welcome back," Charlie says from one of the tartan armchairs, his immaculate eyebrows raised in a way that somehow looks like a sneer. "Just like you to sleep through the end of the world, you idle prick." He ruins it by smiling suddenly, genuine and exhausted with relief, and Eggsy reaches out feebly with his loosely curled fist until Charlie bumps him and pretends he's not pleased.

"Not quite the end of the world," Roxy corrects before Eggsy can ask. "The end of Richmond Valentine, at least. Harry stabbed him with a leg."

In some other world that collection of words probably makes sense, but whatever drug there was in the knockout dart is still lingering in Eggsy's body, making him heavy and lethargic and stupid. Something's crinkling uncomfortably on his neck - gauze and tape, he realises - and there's a strange sensation there that's not quite pain but more the promise of pain to follow at some near point in the future, which is somehow worse. "You did it, then?" he asks, half-numb mouth fumbling the words, and Roxy screws her face up at the memory.

"It's not like stitching ribbons on at _all_. Do not recommend."

"Yeah, well. I mean, thanks anyway. So, what happened?"

But explanations are going to have to wait because Lancelot appears in the cockpit doorway then, still with that godawful monkey tail beard looping around his mouth, and gives Eggsy a sarcastic kind of joke salute before joining Percival on the other couch. Behind him, bloodstained and bruised and crumpled with his hair in disarray and his tie slashed in half, Harry is leaning against the doorway sipping a large glass of whisky.

"Bloody well done," he says softly, and sets the glass down on the computer desk so he can come over and kneel on the carpet next to Eggsy's head.

"I didn't do nothing," Eggsy protests, but weakly because Harry's fingers are stroking through his hair now and that always, always makes him feel weak. He's pretty sure it always will.

"Nonsense." Harry leans down, lips brushing Eggsy's forehead in a kiss that makes a shiver ripple down the entire length of his spine. "I need to choose a candidate for agent training to replace the traitors we lost today. Merlin wants me to ask you. I'm almost tempted, but I selfishly can't abide the thought of taking you away from a career that puts you in lycra in public so often."

Eggsy laughs at that, he can't help himself, even though it makes his neck feel alarmingly as though it's about to zip open like a hoodie. "As if that's the reason, you're just still fucking sore I beat your obstacle course record."

Harry shrugs and kisses him again. "That, too."

Sleep is luring Eggsy down again, making his eyelids so heavy that they droop closed completely without any input from his brain. "Ask Ryan. He's fucking wasted on that estate. Give him a leg up like you gave me and Jamal, he deserves it."

Harry murmurs something thoughtful then, but if there are any words in it Eggsy's too far gone to hear them. The last thing he's aware of before he's asleep again is the warm slide of Harry's long fingers on the back of his hand, and the vague idea that at this moment there's nothing else he needs in the world.

* * *

_Two months later_

Eggsy's dressing room is dim when he opens the door, lit only by the soft golden light bulbs around the mirror that illuminate the clutter of makeup and water bottles and good luck cards on the table.

Harry is silhouetted in front of it all, kneeling there on the rug with his perfect posture in his flawless suit. The only thing that ruins it - not ruins at all, really - is the rise and fall of his shoulders as he tries and entirely fails to keep his breathing steady.

"Hey," Eggsy says softly.

Harry's voice betrays none of what his shoulders do. "Good evening."

"Been here long?"

"I didn't much care to see you die."

"Kinda unavoidable when you're Romeo, though." He slowly begins to untie the laces on his voluminous shirt, knowing that Harry's hungrily watching his reflection in the mirror. "So, you here for a private lapdance or you just wanna get straight down to licking all the sweat off my revolting sticky body?"

"I'll have option B, please," Harry says politely like he's ordering food off a menu, and Eggsy wonders for about the millionth time how it's even possible to love such a ridiculous pervert as much as he does.

Lucky there's a lock on the door.

* * *

**END.**

* * *


End file.
